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God and Ma 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE HIGHER 
LIFE 



BY 

E. ELLSWORTH SHUMAKER 

Ph.D. (YALE) 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbe 'Knicherbocker iptesa 

1909 






Copyright, 1909 

BY 

K. ELLSWORTH SHUMAiC£R 



ICbe fmklteTbocbev 8>res0, View ffotrlfc 



ICL,A253047 



(To 

THE BEAUTIFUL MEMORY OF 

PHILLIPS BROOKS 

IN ENDURING GRATITUDE AND LOVE 



PREFACE 

ALL awaking natures are interested in the 
Higher Life. Such life is our supreme 
human concern. The reality of it is an increasing 
fascination ; the process thereof, a growing inquiry. 
The present work attempts to show how we enter 
upon and actually live the Higher Life. It is 
not a metaphysic, although an ultimate view of 
things is implicit in it. Nor is it an apologetic, 
though again it is hoped that it may reveal the 
Rock under our feet and the Sky that arches over 
our heads. Rather, it is a philosophy of life on 
its higher planes. 

So far from there being nothing new, every 
human life is unique, every experience has some- 
thing new in it. The great Revelation is not 
ended, and will not be. God has much more to 
show the wondering eyes of men. And every 
life that deeply lives sees a fresh vision, and joy- 
ously walks in a brightening light. The Spirit 
of truth is not merely repeating itself. In this 
work, the new view contained is the vision of 
man's Great Environment, and of man himself 
as veritably set into it, and forever living his 
Higher Life in relation thereto. Modern science 



vi Preface 

has discovered anew man's lower environment, 
and for the first time in the history of thought, 
seriously has set man therein and thoroughly 
related his life thereto. What remains is that 
religious philosophy should discover man's Higher 
Environment anew, and with equal thoroughness 
set him into it, and seriously implicate his nobler 
life therewith. In the whole progress of science, 
there has been no more inclusive achievement 
than the first. What then, in the advance of 
religion, may the second prove? 

Out of life this book grew; to life it makes its 
call. Fourteen years ago the germinal idea of 
it sprang from the grapple with human needs. 
Six years ago its background was presented as 
a Doctor's thesis at Yale University. The book 
has been, I am free to say, a costly work. During 
Harvard days, my interest was already philosophic, 
looking to the deeper analysis of the religious 
life. During the Princeton and New York (Gen. 
Theol. Sem.) periods, that interest deepened. 
Afterward at Berlin, philosophy of religion be- 
came central. And later at Yale, the inquiry 
had crystallized into what now has grown to the 
present work. In the intervening pastorates, 
our interpretation has been held close to palpi- 
tating life. Every chapter and stage of the book 
has been vivid with experience. 

The old quarrel between philosophy and poetry, 



Preface vii 

of which Plato speaks, was composed in his fair 
pages, when philosophy became beautiful with 
life, and poetry became deep with wisdom. The 
poets were right, when they shrank from the 
pale systems, and felt that without the warmth 
and colour of reality men were not dealing with 
life at all. And the philosophers were right, 
when they held aloof, and somewhat superiorly 
insisted that without the solid framework of 
truth neither things nor men were thinkable. 
For unless truth rises into beauty, and unless 
beauty springs out of truth, both alike are faulty 
and unreal. Truth and grace meet together in 
every perfect thing. We shall then seek for 
truth indeed as for pearls of great price, but we 
shall know that we hold the precious gems in our 
hands, when they shine with living and during 
beauty. 

Human life has become too subjective to be 
satisfied without explanation. We want to know 
the secret of things, the "how" of the Higher 
Life. We have lost, perhaps forever, the naivete 
of our childhood. We shall win, I think, a new 
and higher simplicity. For subjectivity is not 
the end, nor explanation. A higher objectivity 
is the true goal. But for the present, our stage 
of progress seeks and needs a philosophy of life. 
Through it, we shall pass enriched into a new 
and larger faith and peace. 



viii Preface 

Some such approach to the great Realities, 
and some such philosophy of life as lies before 
us, I deeply believe, is the future path of the 
human mind. 

E. E. S. 

Cambridge, Mass. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I 

Man as Set into the Universe: or the 
World-All in its Many Spheres as it En- 
folds Man ...... I 

A. The Physical Spheres That Enfold Man 

CHAPTER II 

The Enfolding World- All in its Many 
Spheres . . . . . . -13 

B. The Human Spheres That Enfold Man 

CHAPTER III 

The Enfolding World-All in its Many 
Spheres ....... 43 

C. The Higher Spheres That Enfold Man 

CHAPTER IV 

The Correspondingly Wide-Ranging Gamut 
OF Man's Powers ..... 74 

CHAPTER V 

The World- All at Work: or the Pri- 
ority, Parenthood, and Greater Working 
OF God ....... 85 



X Contents 

FAGB 

CHAPTER VI 

Why is our Consciousness of God's Work- 
ing so Meagre? . . . . . 130 

CHAPTER VII 

Man at Work, or the Responsive Receptiv- 
ity and Co-operative Activity of Man . 141 

CHAPTER VIII 
What God is Working toward . . . 173 

CHAPTER IX 
What Man is Working toward . . . 208 

CHAPTER X 

God's Process: or God's Movement Man- 
ward ....... 251 

CHAPTER XI 

Man's Progress: or Man's Movement God- 
ward ....... 295 

CHAPTER XII 
Man's True Life in God .... 325 

CHAPTER XIII 
Humanity and the Individual . . . 354 



Contents xi 

PA.GK 

CHAPTER XIV 

Man the Expression op God and Partaker 
OP THE Divine Nature .... 370 

CHAPTER XV 
Thb Abounding Riches op the Higher Lipb 3^3 



God and Man: Philosophy of 
the Higher Life 



CHAPTER I 

MAN AS SET INTO THE UNIVERSE; OR, THE WORLD 
ALL IN ITS MANY SPHERES AS IT ENFOLDS MAN 

A. The Physical Spheres That Enfold Man 

OUR total Environment that enspheres us 
is so ever-present that we do not reahse 
its presence. We do not know the primal fact 
of things. We are unconscious of what is. If 
we could begin life by waking with adult conscious- 
ness at darkest midnight, and have that moment 
as the beginning of conscious experience, we 
should be in a condition no doubt for a revelation 
of the truth of things as it is. We should discover 
our body and that we are shut up within it. We 
shoiild become aware of our head and that we 
live in it, enclosed by it as by a nutshell. When 
day broke, our eyes would open to a stupendous 



2 God and Man 

scene. We should step forth into an encircling 
Universe. The earth would be under our feet; 
the sky wotild arch over our head; we should be 
ensphered. The solid earth would impress us 
as a mighty fact, and we should realise that we 
were standing upon it. But wherefore stand upon 
this solid mass of earth? We might try to raise 
one foot from it, and of course succeed. We 
might then attempt to raise both feet from it, 
and of course fail. This would be strange. The 
earth would seem to have hold of us. We might 
try to leap up from it. Up two feet we might 
jump, but back we should come. The earth 
surely would appear to have us in its grasp. 
All our strength might be put forth in a mightier 
leap. But back again we should come. In vain 
would all such attempts be repeated. The earth 
would grasp us still with resistless might. Here 
would be stubborn fact. This would be the 
beginning of the revelation of what is. The 
conclusion would be quite irresistible that we are 
held within the unbreakable grasp of earth. 

We might have noticed ere this that we breathed. 
The wind might have blown upon us and we have 
become conscious of the atmosphere. It might 
now flash in upon us that we breathed this atmo- 
sphere. We might perceive that we breathed 
it regularly and kept on doing so. "But what 
is this air?" we might ask, "and why breathe 
it? It is a mere nothing. The earth is a solid 



The Physical Envelops 3 

fact, but this atmosphere is unsubstantial noth- 
ingness. We'll breathe it no more." Speedily 
however there would be a growing inducement 
to breathe again just this nothingness. We should 
discover a "powerful weakness" in not doing so; 
discover that this subtle, invisible, intangible 
something all about us is indispensable; that 
it is the life of our life; that when it pours itself 
into us, we live; and that when we breathe it 
not, we die. Here is another revelation of what 
is. Here is a new fact, different from the mighty 
fact of earth, but, in its way, just as stupendous 
and resistless. We move about and explore 
this new fact. We go backward; it is there. 
We go forward, and sidewise ; it is there, and there. 
We descend into a valley; it is there. We go 
up to a hilltop ; it is there also. Everywhere and 
everywhere it is present. It enfolds us. It 
might be suggested to us that it is like an ocean 
and that we are like fish; that we move about 
within it as fish swim about in the sea; that we 
continually breathe it and feed upon it as fish 
breathe and feed upon the water. It might ftir- 
ther be suggested that this atmospheric ocean 
belongs to the earth just as the watery ocean 
does; that it is in reality part of the earth just 
as that is. Then we should at length realise 
that this material sphere is not only under us 
but also over us, and around us — yes, and in us ; 
that we are in it, are ensphered by it perpetually; 



4 God and Man 

that we are held in its grasp, go not out from it, 
live and move and have oiir being in it. 

The primal facts are now before us. We are 
ensphered by the globe of the head — a narrow 
world. We are ensphered by the earth with its 
power. We are ensphered by the air. Or, put- 
ting all these together, we are ensphered by the 
material world. Within these spheres we always 
live, making no excursions beyond them. 

It begins to grow apparent by this time what 
the fact about man's place in the Universe is. 
He lives his life within many envelopes. Many 
concentric spheres, so to speak, enfold him. 
He lives within them. He feeds out of and upon 
them in many ways. They pour themselves 
into him perpetually. He is a part of them, of 
the spheres that encircle him. 

But let us go on to think of other spheres. 

Our thoughtful observer will not thus have 
grown intelligent about body, earth, and air with- 
out having noticed the glory of the sunlight that 
floods the world. His eyes before this will have 
followed the sunbeams up to the sun. He will 
have noticed that he is enveloped in light, and 
that earth and sky as well are filled with light 
flowing forth from the sun. He may close his 
eyes and discover how all the world is then shut 
out as by a curtain. In this way he may learn 
how light is poured into his eyes and how depend- 
ent sight is upon it. Without light, earth, sky, 



The Physical Envelops 5 

a Universe would be curtained from vision. He 
might feel also the warmth of the sun's rays. 
Someone might inform him, however, that he had 
not yet discovered a tithe of the meaning of this 
to him new phenomenon of light. He might tell 
him that without it earth and he alike would be 
swathed in eternal ice and snow; that all forms 
of life would pass away; and that death would 
hold uninterrupted reign. As though this were 
not wonder enough, he might tell him how distant 
the orb and source of all this light is; how this 
boundless sphere of light ever goes forth from 
the sun, and is and remains essentially a part of 
the sun. Hereupon our learner would discover 
that being enswathed by light was being ensphered 
in reality by the sun. That far-away orb was yet 
so near, encircled him, and after its own fashion 
held him in its mighty grasp. It poured light 
into his eyes, warmth into his body, and, with 
food, vitality into his very marrow-bones. 

Here then is a new envelope. Man is ensphered 
by the sun. Within this greater sphere he lives 
his life, and, after a different sort, feeds out of 
and upon it. In manifold ways it pours itself 
into him and conditions all his life. 

Already we are led to think that it is not alone 
or chiefly what man does within his spheres, 
but also what his spheres do within him. As we 
go on it will appear that man is held within many 
ensphering worlds, and that what they do to 



6 God and Man 

him and in him is much more than what he him- 
self does. 

Though man is ensphered by the earth, he is 
encompassed also, as we now have seen, by the 
sun. Thus far considered this last is in subtle 
and intangible but powerfiil forms. There is 
more truth to learn about this last, however. 
The sun holds both man and world in its grasp. 
Our learner will be told that the earth itself 
holds not him with more irresistible power than 
the sun holds the earth and all that is thereon. 
The earth and all its belongings, he will be told, 
is flung out into space and attracted by the sun 
about its appointed orbit unceasingly, ever in 
obedience to the central sim. With perfection 
of power the earth is ensphered and held fast. 
All that takes place on the earth comes to pass 
within the enveloping control of the solar system. 
This very solid globe itself knows how to do noth- 
ing but haste to obey. It makes no excursions 
beyond its appointed path. It is ever receptive 
of a thousand influences. It is grasped by the 
sun. 

Up to the present we have seen man ensphered 
by his body, ensphered by the earth, ensphered 
by the sun. He does not hold his spheres, they 
hold him. What he does is something. What 
they do to him and in him is much more. He 
lives his life within them. They in a broad 
sense may be said to live their life into him. 



The Physical Envelops 7 

When we picture man standing upon the earth, 
and the earth flying at a thousand-mile-a-minute 
rate through space, circHng in unbroken obedience 
around the sun; and then when we picture 
sun, earth, and man as enveloped by the Universe, 
we are beginning to make real to ourselves the 
actual truth and fact of things. As we see the 
sky arch over us and sweep round our world, so 
we see the vaster universal heavens sweep round 
and ensphere our solar system. We are held 
sphere within sphere, the less enfolded in the 
greater, out to the greatest. We are ensphered 
by the Universe. 

Nor is this to be acknowledged as fact and then 
straightway made naught of. As though it were 
indeed an infinite truth, but touched not our 
lives — ^just as the broad heavens are it is true 
above all our heads, but seem to unthinking 
men to have little moment for us. On the con- 
trary, the seeming indifferent sky is quite our 
first concern. Within this universal sphere, we 
have our existence, think our thought, do our 
work, and develop our personality. 

Vast symbol all this of the being of God. Per- 
haps more than symbol; perhaps expression in 
part of the reality. Perchance the infinite Uni- 
verse that enfolds us is, in some sense, the infinite 
God enfolding us. Perchance our thousand-fold 
connection therewith is in reality thousand-fold 
connection with God. Perhaps we, in a way, 



8 God and Man 

rest upon God when we stand upon the earth, 
are encircled by God when enveloped by the air, 
breathe in God when we breathe the atmosphere ■ 
in some sense, feed upon God when we feed upon 
bread, are vitalised by God when quickened by 
sunlight, and are held in the power of God when 
held in the grasp of earth, sun, and Universe. 
Such, one may well be persuaded, is the deepest 
interpretation and truth of things. Living thus 
within the Universe is in reality living, moving, 
and having one's being in God. And the ten 
thousand laws of the mighty system that lay 
hold of us and work day and night upon and in 
us are all powers that go forth from Him. In 
the vast Universe, therefore, that enspheres us, 
we see the infinite God ensphering us ; and in the 
myriad laws that work in us we see the myriad 
influences of God working out His will. All 
envelopes are divine envelopes in the last meaning 
of them. First and last we are held within an 
infinite enfolding Life ; we are ensphered by God. 

We live within the body; we live within the en- 
circling earth ; we live within the ensphering sun | 
we live within the all-enfolding Universe. This 
is what we have seen. In the deepest meaning 
of it all, we live within the enfolding Life of God. 

These are some of the envelopes by which 
man is ensphered. He lives perpetually in vital 
mutual commerce with all these envelopes. Really 
he is feeding upon them, in the broad sense, aU 



The Physical Envelops 9 

the time. They are the life of his life. One 
needs to see clearly all the envelopes ; then to see 
that man is really set into them all; then to see 
how he actually lives his life within these spheres ; 
— better, how the All lives its life into him, and 
how he co-operates with the All ; — or, once more, 
how the All inflows into him and how he lives 
by and out of the feeding Absolute. 

It is now apparent that we are set vastly deeper 
into this system of things than we know. We 
have infinitely more vital and real relationships, 
connections, commerces with the Universe than 
we realise. The way we are bedded and rooted 
into this world and all things, in legionary vital 
connection with all, is wonderful yet is the sober 
truth . We are not like an island floating in infinite 
emptiness alone and dissevered, but we are like 
a tree rooted down into everything and branched 
out into ever3rthing. The earth is not more really 
set into million-fold connection with the Universe 
than are we. This is what is. This is the primal 
and fundamental fact of things. We seem as 
disconnected as an eagle floating in mid-heaven. 
We forget that every solar system, every star, 
every satellite, every mote of matter in the wide 
Universe sends a line of influence through the 
centre of the eagle's body, and a million forces 
focus and balance there. The eagle knows it not. 
It only floats in freedom. So we each seem sepa- 
rated and disconnected, but the truth and fact 



lo God and Man 

is that we are set into things, are a living part of 
things, in deeper and more vital relationship 
than V\^e shall ever comprehend. All that is 
breathes in us, sends its life-blood through us, 
vitalises us. The total system of beings and 
powers lives and pulses in us. We are held in 
truth in an infinite network of influences and 
laws ; as though a vast spider-web stretched across 
space and we were entangled in ten-million 
meshes. So, and more so, are we knit into this 
marvellous and multiform World-All. 

If this is the fact and scientific truth of things ; 
if the life of man is a sort of infinite thing, acted 
upon in infinite ways and again acting in infinite 
ways upon the universal environment, how can 
the meagre field of consciousness ever know more 
than a fraction of what is taking place? Only 
the infinite Mind can know the endless involution 
and detail of the process. Vastly more is going 
on in man than he knows or can ever know. In 
the main he carries not himself, but is borne on 
the bosom of things. In the main he lives not 
his own life, but the World- All lives its life in him. 
So deep, so real, so vital, so mutual, so constant, 
so multiform, so mysterious is this commerce 
between man and his world. 

Thus far we have come to this. Here are many 
spheres enfolding man. Here is man enfolded 
by all the spheres, yet a part of them. As a part, 
man lives his life within the spheres. All these 



The Physical Envelops ii 

spheres also live their life, so to speak, in man. 
Life is a constant renewal out of the envelopes, 
a perpetual feeding out of and upon the spheres. 
The feeding envelopes perpetually feed man. 
What man does is something. What the envel- 
opes do is much more. Man therefore, one may 
say, lives a fed life within feeding worlds that 
enfold him and of which he all the time forms 
a part; the deepest interpretation of all this 
being that man lives his life within the enfolding 
Life of God. 

In endeavouring to get at and realise man's 
place in the cosmos we must not overlook the 
influence upon him of the succession of day and 
night, of the ever recurring seasons, the distance 
of his home from the equator, the elevation of it 
above sea-level, and the topography of the land 
wherein he lives. Man builds no houses on the 
Matterhorn, and makes no gardens on the summit 
of the Himalayas. He achieves no great civili- 
sations at the poles or at the equator. And the 
pervasive and powerful influence of the seasons 
and of the succession of day and night is incalcul- 
able. What is more subtle than climate? or 
than springtime? or than the influence of light? 
The extent to which man is held within the power 
of these is not to be measured by the space that 
here can be given to them. They form other 
atmospheres, so to speak, within which man lives 
out his life. 



12 God and Man 

Here let it be noted that it is not our purpose to 
attempt a precise statement or assessment of the 
influence of these various factors upon man. It 
is our object merely to call up the conditioning 
atmospheres with the multitude of facts that 
each readily suggests. It is not our interest 
critically to enumerate the facts, setting down 
no more no less, but rather to open our eyes to a 
million patent facts, and to take them into the 
account in working out our philosophy of life. 
Accordingly we simply ask, for our purpose, that 
the multiform influence upon man of the succession 
of day and night, the recurring seasons, etc., be 
realised. Thus we hope to see man set into his 
worlds and to see the complexity of those worlds, 
and thus we hope to produce the impression of 
the myriad-sided relationship of the World-All 
to man. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ENFOLDING WORLD-ALL IN ITS MANY SPHERES 

B. The Human Spheres That Enfold Man 

WE now have seen man set into and enveloped 
by diverse physical worlds. We have 
seen him bound up with them by invisible bonds 
that run from the centre of his being to the centre 
of all and every being. We have seen perpetual 
action and reaction, inflow and outflow, com- 
parable to ceaseless inhalation and exhalation of 
the many world-atmospheres that enfold him. 
We have seen him sustaining to the All much the 
same relation that the eye sustains to light, the 
lungs to air, the fish to the ocean, or the tree to 
nature. We have realised how involved and 
complicated his life is with the World-All, and 
how the vast Whole ceaselessly breathes into him 
the breath of life ; how it is thus and not otherwise, 
that he lives and must ever live ; and how this is 
the unchangeable fact and reality of things. 
Finally we have thought that this most primal 
and fundamental fact, which is the background 
against which all the other facts are set, must on 

13 



14 God and Man 

no account be disregarded. One might as well 
disregard the sunlight in springtime and then try 
to make out the secret of growth, as try to deter- 
mine the nature of man's higher life without set- 
ting him into his spheres and seeing how he lives 
his life out of and upon the feeding worlds. 

In the main we have spoken hitherto of physical 
spheres. But man is ensphered by other worlds 
than physical. He is ensphered by life-worlds, 
by society-worlds, by mind-worlds, and by truth-, 
beauty-, ideal-, and spirit-worlds. Besides being 
held in the grasp of earth and atmosphere, sun- 
light and sun, universe and law, climate and 
topography, day and night, summer and winter 
(barring the equator), man is held in the grasp also 
of these Human, and of these Higher worlds. 

Now, therefore, let us turn from man's physical 
first to man's human spheres, and see him set into 
the home, the community, the race, and humanity, 
reserving for later survey man's higher spheres. 
We need to discover and appreciate the magnitude 
of these and see the intimacy and extent of their 
influence upon him ; for he is held within them and 
conditioned by them to an unguessed degree. 

From the time when as an ovum the individual 
parted from the ovary of his mother and as a 
sperm from his father's body, to the time when he 
was born, on to the time when he leaves the paren- 
tal circle to form, himself, half of a new home- 
sphere, and to become the generator of children, 



The Human Envelops 15 

sprung from his own body, he is knit into vital 
and manifold relationship with the home. No 
words can set forth the vitality of his connection 
with the family. He gets his being in the begin- 
ning from a parent. He springs out of the parent 
body as a bud from a tree. For months he is 
held within and enclosed by the mother-life. He 
is fed out of and upon it. Her circulation almost 
is his, her life, even. His life is enclosed within 
and is a part of a larger life. — And what if this, 
man's first beginning and connection with the 
larger life of the parent, be the symbol of his 
eternally true and unchanging connection with 
the World-All, or with God. What if it be that 
from the beginning, man is held within and for- 
ever fed out of an enfolding infinite Life. — ^And 
after he is born he is still, in a changed but no less 
real way, held within the encircling life of the 
parent. He is fed still from his mother's body. 
And this is no misfortune, but the true and happy 
process of the child's self-realisation. — ^Type once 
more it may be of the true and everlasting process 
of man's self-realisation. — Nor does the mother- 
life merely feed the child-life. In ways past 
finding out, ways subtle, life-giving, and forma- 
tive, she, along with the father, enfolds the child- 
life with unceasing care, affection, thought, and 
spiritual influence. The parent-life touches the 
child-life at a thousand points. Through the 
open instincts, through the open senses, the open 



i6 God and Man 

activities, the opening affections and mind, through 
the ever3rwhere open life of the child, the person- 
ality of the parent finds entrance. It may well 
be doubted whether any of us has ever more than 
begun to guess the subtlety, manifoldness, and 
vitality of the influences that go forth from parent 
to child. The whole gamut of parental being is 
ever at work. And the wide ranges of heart-, mind-, 
and soul-life, in inscrutable ways, work upon it. 
Influences flow into it through every open pore. 
The nature, the temperament, the tone, the tastes, 
feelings, thoughts, ideals, beliefs, aspirations, 
activities, experiences, and character of the parent 
enfold and penetrate the child with the subtlety 
and power of atmosphere and sunlight. A cloud 
of anger passing over the spirit of a mother affects 
the very milk her child nurses. Surely mental 
and spiritual influences could tell of a variety 
and delicacy that material influences can only 
approximate. Yet how delicate and subtle are 
even the material influences. 

Such is the child as he is set into the bosom of 
the family. Only the infinite complexity and 
subtlety of the influences that work upon and in 
him have not been half expressed. The life of 
Tennyson, for example, with his rich and intri- 
cate personality, found scores of ways of entering 
and affecting the life of his son. In innumerable 
ways, from the first giving of being to him, to the 
incalculable parental influences that never ceased 



The Human Envelops 17 

to work, on to the thousand-fold variety of in- 
fluence that permeated and leavened his growing 
life, on to the end, his great rich personality en- 
folded the child-life and poured itself in upon it. 
The child received these influences coming through 
all these channels, and, after its own child-fashion, 
acted upon them. He knew how to get at his 
father through many doors besides that of know- 
ledge. In the beginning that door did not exist. 
Yet a thousand other doors stood open. He 
was enabled through every open pore of his na- 
ture to absorb the enfolding life. As a leaf with 
its ten thousand open mouths breathes in the 
encircling atmosphere, so the child breathed in 
the parental influence; so the parent-personality 
breathed the breath of thousand-fold life into 
the child. The child knew it not. For months 
he knew not at all. For years the gateway of 
knowledge was only a narrow gate indeed, but 
broad and many all the while were the other ways. 
So much for the enfolding life of the home. 
Even strong statement has done it scant justice. 

Out beyond the family is the community. 
Man is set into that environment as well. A liv- 
ing being set into a life-giving society — so runs 
the truth of things. We must conceive facts 
more vitally. If we know not of a hundred beat- 
ing hearts of different kinds, and of as many life- 
bloods, all different, circulating through all things 



1 8 God and Man 

and especially through human life, our under- 
standing of Reality is as yet external and wooden. 
Our minds must vitalise our worlds in order to 
make the first beginning at discovery of what 
the real nature of things is. Man set into society 
therefore is a vital and not a mere mechanical 
and dead fact. He is knit into society in living 
connection with it. There are other connections 
besides joints and ligaments. The body is not 
the most alive thing in the world. As alive and 
quivering with vitality as flame is, so alive are 
feeling and thought and the activities of spirit. 
Into these atmospheres and sunlights and elec- 
tricities and spiritual climates and gravitations 
the life of man is set. Society encompasses him 
with many life-giving atmospheres. What has 
been said of the child as held in the bosom of the 
home is true of man as set into society. He is 
shot through with as many influences as beams 
of sunlight. The whole wide gamut of social 
forces plays incessantly upon him. As complex 
as is our mysterious humanity, as wide as is the 
range of human faculty, so multiform are the cur- 
rents of influence that flow through the being of 
each of us. A flower blooming in the sunlight 
seems attached to nothing but its stem. But a 
score of thousands could not number the subtle 
influences that have wrought upon it. It is as 
though it were attached to and had grown upon 
a thousand stems instead of one. So a life grafted 



The Human Envelops 19 

into society has flowing through it a hundred saps, 
a hundred dews fall upon it along with a myriad 
raindrops; and countless sunbeams of influence 
pierce it through. And when we discover this 
we simply open our eyes to what is. However 
disconnected a life superficially may seem, it is 
notwithstanding infinitely connected. In mutual 
give-and-take, in numberless actions and reac- 
tions, it lives and grows and comes to self-reali- 
sation. This is the profound ever-operative fact 
of things. A life may appear to be fastened to 
society as simply as a tree seems to be fastened 
to the earth — the single trunk seems to run down 
into the ground, and that is all. But dig away 
the surface of the soil and see a very network 
and tangle of roots. The tree is fastened to the 
earth with thousand-fold vital connection. So 
a life, only much more intimately and complexly, 
is connected with society. The atmosphere at 
noonday is hardly more full of rays of light than 
the world of society is full of powers. There are 
no idle sunbeams. So there are no idle social 
powers. They all work upon man. How subtle, 
deep, and varied that working is only recent study 
has begun at all adequately to reveal. 

The more penetrating the study of nature and 
of life becomes, the more complex and many-sided 
they are seen to be. The germ cell used to be 
spoken of as simple. Minuter research has 
revealed unsuspected complexity. What was 



20 God and Man 

thought for ultimate analysis to be the unit of life, 
turns out, itself, to be a manifold. Society, in like 
manner, has revealed, on more searching examina- 
tion, an intricacy and complexity of nature that 
is inconceivable. Where the last and subtlest 
workings of human life have their seat is not yet 
discovered, and the fuller knowledge, as it comes, 
seems only to push that discovery ever farther 
off. Wheel within wheel, wheel within wheel, 
out beyond our ken runs the involution and mys- 
tery of human life. Into such a human environ- 
ment is man set. 

If we think of a tree with a multitude of roots 
running down into the ground and with trunk 
and innumerable branches stretching up and 
spreading out into air and sunlight; and if we 
think of every tendril as a point of contact and 
of every leaf as a place of connection, and then 
think of the multitudinous powers of nature that 
are touching those tendrils and leaves constantly 
— the million sunbeams and air-atoms and rain- 
drops and food-particles that pass perpetually 
into the tree's life and structure — we have not 
even then an overdrawn conception of the re- 
lation of man to society. Infinitely complex 
and manifold is human society. This must be 
realised. Set into such a plexus is the equally 
manifold life of man. Between the two, countless 
actions and reactions are ever proceeding. 

The trend of the argum.ent has been growing. 



The Human Envelops 21 

I think, more and more apparent as the discussion 
has proceeded. There is a very great conception, 
I venture to think, which must be gotten at in 
order to know man's place in the Universe, and 
to discover the true character of the higher Hfe. 
That conception is the thought of many enspher- 
ing worlds, and of man as set into the centre and 
focus of them all, the total system of beings and 
powers environing him and working momentarily 
upon him, while he, for his part, ceaselessly reacts 
upon and coworks with them. When we see 
the wide gamut of Reality ranged up and down, 
and when we see face-to-face with it man with 
equally wide range of being, and when we soberly 
realise that that total system forever works upon 
the total man, and that the total man likewise 
forever works upon the total system, then we are 
beginning to get some true conception of the 
actual fact of things. 

In some measure the relation of man to the 
community now has been set forth in a general 
way. Hereafter more specific facts will crop out 
in the development. 

Out beyond the community is the nationality 
and the race. These also are spheres. So evident 
however are these envelopes and so patent is their 
determinative influence that space need not here 
be given to their elaboration. Nevertheless they 
shall not on that account be thought of unessen- 
tial moment. 



22 God and Man 

Home, community, nationality, race, — out be- 
yond these we shall now see the wider humanity. 
By this greater sphere as well the individual is 
encircled. "Very evidently so," one might ob- 
serve. "It is siirely no revelation that man is 
set into humanity. "-—The fact here considered, 
nevertheless, is not meant to be quite the com- 
monplace that at first sight it appears. Man 
makes no excursions beyond his humanity. Human 
nature in general gives law to the human indi- 
vidual in particular. Man does not take on other 
nature than human: he does not unfold into tree- 
nature, nor into fish, bird, or animal nature. 
Nor does he unfold into angel or archangel. From 
this point of view he makes neither ascent nor 
descent. He unfolds out along the lines of his 
essential humanity. He never leaps its bounds. 
It never occurs to him to be anything else than hu- 
man. He is ensphered by his humanity. How 
countless the influences that have marked out 
his human bounds, how definitively humanity 
has wrought upon him, or with what powers 
of self-delimitation he himself has developed 
within human lines, we but feebly conceive. 
We may think of the tree as imparting tree-nature 
to the seed, and so setting its bounds. Or we 
may think of the seed as self-limiting in its de- 
velopment. In either aspect, both of which are 
real, numberless influences are at work. So we 
may think of humanity as imparting human 



The Human Envelops 23 

nature to the human bud, so to speak, thus de- 
fining its limits. Or we may think of the human 
bud, the individual, as self-limiting in its develop- 
ment. In either case, both of which are alike 
real, the determinative forces have been infinitely 
complex. So it is man is held within the envelope 
of his humanity. It is a great enspherement. 
All the meaning of it is not yet known. The 
many-sidedness and importance of this great fact 
must be more adequately reflected upon and taken 
into account. It will not do to say, "Of course 
man is ensphered by his humanity," and "Cer- 
tainly that is the great elemental fact, " and then, 
after all, make little account of that fact. It 
would seem to be a prevalent weakness of our 
human reflection that, in many cases, it makes 
least account of the things that are really greatest. 
Humanity, race, nationality, community, family; 
the change of seasons, the succession of day and 
night, topography, climate, the reign of law; 
the earth under our feet, the sky above our heads, 
the atmosphere we breathe, the vapoury clouds, 
the vitalising sunlight, the central sun, even the 
Universe itself are all taken as matters-of-course. 
And then elaborate consideration is given to the 
minor spheres that seem to touch life more inti- 
mately. As though the facts of first and elemental 
greatness were too vast for consideration, and 
therefore we devoted ourselves to the exploration 
of smaller worlds. "The boundless oceans with 



24 God and Man 

their mighty influences are too great; let us ex- 
plore the inland lakes and ponds, " we seem to be 
saying, "and thus let us endeavour to estimate the 
significance of the watery world." But not so 
does the significance of the great oceans get 
discovered. 

Much of the intellectual work of our time seems 
to be of this character. Great things are not 
seen in their greatness ; small things are examined 
with microscopic care. The grand view is 
everywhere lost. Infinite, endless details — the 
mind is distracted with these and lost among 
them. It has no energy left for great emprise 
or vast conception. And great truth, hidden, as 
it always is, in great worlds, remains like them 
unrevealed and unknown. No ; there is no election. 
The Universe, the solar system, the solid earth, 
can not be taken as matters-of-course. Great 
things must be greatly considered. So, and not 
otherwise, will the great backgrounds of fact and 
truth become revealed. 

Throughout all this if the impression has been 
deepening that the life of man is inwoven more 
than a thread in a fabric, the desired result is being 
attained. But the end is not yet. Still other 
spheres enfold man. He is ensphered by heredity 
and history, by civilisation and the evolutional 
process, past, present, and future, and by the 
Zeitgeist. The consideration of all these, it is 



The Human Envelops 25 

true, is but the more extended consideration of 
the family, community, nationality, race and 
humanity. Nevertheless it will be better to carry 
forward the examination of these in the above 
forms. 

Doubtless present humanity influences the in- 
dividual, but how is it with past humanity? 
Have the generations that are gone influenced 
him by all that they have done and been? Yes; 
man is the child not only of the present but also 
of the past. Strictly, all the generations that 
have ever been, influence him now both by what 
they did and by what they were. History and 
heredity have present meaning. 

It is not necessary for our present purpose to 
go to either extreme — either to overstate the 
importance of heredity, as seems to have been done 
awhile ago, or to understate it, as seems to be 
done by some to-day. It is not necessary to 
make naught of personal initiative and of environ- 
ment in order to make past process significant. 
Nor is it necessary to make the past little in 
order to make the present big. Individual initia- 
tive and the influence of environment are great. 
Past process is also great. Our present study, 
however, does not depend upon the comparative 
importance assessed to each. Without doubt 
every generation that lives is influenced by all 
the generations that have ever lived. That is 
enough. How that influence has wrought and 



26 God and Man 

through what diverse channels it has poured 
needs to be realised. A thing so involved and 
complex as all the past human life of the world 
could not affect so complex a thing as the modern 
human individual except through numberless 
channels. Influence him it certainly does. In- 
fluence him in many ways it certainly must. 

Once more we come to what is and shall be 
throughout our central thought. Man is enveloped 
by many worlds and in living contact with them 
all. He is himself a complex being with wide 
gamut of powers. He faces his worlds with many 
attitudes, opennesses, receptivities, activities, com- 
merces. Many are the relationships in which he 
stands to the World-All. Ensphered and en- 
sphered in this manner he lives his many-sided 
life. This is the first and fundamental fact. In 
the light of this primal and great fact the higher 
life is alone to be seen and understood. 

The individual is environed not only by the 
present, but also, as we have said, by all the past 
as well. Reflection upon the past, from this 
point of view, is most instructive. Man is the 
child of the past in more ways than ever have 
dawned upon his consciousness. It must be 
the common experience of reflective and scien- 
tific thought to be surprised again and again 
at the variety of past process as it still works on 
in present-day life. The revelation is bewildering 
and outgoes our powers of conception. One sees 



The Human Envelops 27 

in the past a kind of infinite thing, and with deep- 
ening reflection doubts its effective potency less 
and less. 

In great broad surveys one sees how inevitable 
it is that the past should live on in the present, 
and how irrational it would be if the fact were 
different. If the infinite toil and moil of the long 
generations of struggling men could not in some 
way be registered in the physical organism and 
passed on through heredity as an accumulated 
treasure; if the long emotional life of the race 
with its untold joys and sorrows, its loves and 
hates, its hopes and fears, its exaltations and 
despairs, its passions and pains and pleasures, 
could be experienced for hundreds of generations, 
and then transmit no influence thereof to posterity ; 
if the thought of man, that wondrous thing in his 
mysterious life, with variety first and last com- 
parable to the endless variety of all the objects 
of thought, that descends to the minuti® of 
microscopic worlds and ascends to the magni- 
tudes of milky ways, needing a brain so complex 
that its elements outnumber all the hosts of the 
universal heavens, — ^if thought, I say, could course 
through the brain of mankind for untold centuries 
and after all project no trace whatever of influence 
into the present, we should have a world as ab- 
surd as mysterious. If the moral and spiritual 
struggle of the race, with its shame and glory, 
with its tragedy and pathos, could go on through- 



28 God and Man 

out the long history of the ascent of man; if the 
conscience could know no increasing enlighten- 
ment, the soiil no growing nobility, and character 
no advancing strength and solidity, which they 
could pass on at least as aptitudes to the new 
generation, wisdom itself would be turned into 
folly. Then all the struggle of the race, as such, 
woidd be vain; all its tragic emotion without 
significance, its thought hardly more than the 
iridescence of a dream., without possibility of 
widening, and all its spiritual endeavour mocked 
in its attempted progress. Racial progress, as 
such, there could not be. If past process had not 
present meaning, then would the accumulated 
experience of the race, more precious than the 
gold of all the continents, be incapable of present 
inheritance; then would its habits and customs, 
those long-travelled roads, trodden and made 
familiar and easy by the feet of countless genera- 
tions, be barred and made inaccessible to the 
oncoming time; then would language, the fine 
product of so many ages, the most exquisite 
instrument of human invention and the most 
elaborate, never have risen above the level of a 
"googly-goo," in the first place, or been passed on 
from father to son in the second place ; then could 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, without 
which the race would be poor indeed, which are 
now handed down through tradition and litera- 
ture, never become the assured and comparatively 



The Human Envelops 29 

easy heritage of the rising generation; then finally 
could the arts and industries, the credits and 
wealths, the governments and institutions, the 
faiths and religions — in a word, all the civilisations 
of man, which have cost the prolonged struggle 
of all humankind, never be once transmitted. 
Racial progress, as such, would be a thing unknown. 
Our boundless heritage which we rarely and never 
adequately appreciate, our gift from the past 
which is undoubtedly ninety-nine one-hundredths 
of our present possessions, would never have been 
at all. All the past beginnings of the race would 
have begun and ended literally with the bud and 
would now possess for us hardly antiquarian 
interest, certainly no serious concern, and each 
new generation would of necessity begin the game 
of life for itself afresh. 

This is what one beholds in great broad surveys. 
If past process had no present value, if heredity 
and history had no present influence, if all that 
the race has been and done did not project itself 
into all that the race is and does to-day, we should 
scarcely know our transformed selves or world 
for very absurdity. No sort of treasure could 
ever accumulate, whether one thinks of gold dug 
out of the ground or of the priceless instincts 
of the race, or of the long development of Christ- 
ian culture and character, — ^nothing could ac- 
cumulate, nothing be passed on to enrich the 
race. Beyond the first rude beginnings nothing 



30 God and Man 

would be capable either of becoming or of con- 
tinuing. 

Not only progress but indeed the race itself 
would be impossible. Self-perpetuation is really 
the projection of the past into the present. Each 
new generation is an epitome of all the past. If 
heredity and history had no meaning for us to-day, 
the race could not do even what the forest does. 
It at least perpetuates itself, and in so doing bor- 
rows from all its past. The grasses die, but live 
again ; the forests pass away, yet remain ; animals 
live on in their offspring; all that is, passes into 
what is to be and so abides still. How utterly 
empty and senseless the present would be, if 
this were not true, one does not realise without 
deliberate and prolonged effort. This lies on the 
face of things and yet is not seen. It is like all 
things of elemental greatness. They surround 
us like atmospheres. They are breathed but 
not thought about. I sometimes think of phi- 
losophy as the deliberate attempt to estimate 
the greatness of things which are really great — 
the things which are taken for granted and then 
forgotten, which really form the backgrounds of 
all that is and yet somehow sink out of common 
sight. 

It requires no special scientific training to see 
in the above manner what we have now seen — 
the inestimable significance of the past. It all 
lies open in broad surveys to the larger thought. 



The Human Envelops 31 

In this it shows the patent signs of greatness. 
All vast truths that have something of the great- 
ness of the Universe about them have something 
also of the openness and omnipresence of the 
same. They are not hidden in themselves, but 
the eyes which should see them are holden, or 
the souls which should feel them are dead or in- 
capable through pettiness. The great continents 
are not concealed ; they lie open to any eye that 
has elevation and greatness enough to see them. 
So the greatest truths are not to be searched 
for in a corner; they too lie open; they await 
only the coming of the great soul. The vastest 
truths are neither hidden in themselves nor are 
they to be discovered at the end of some minute 
scientific analysis, as such. You shall never dis- 
cover God shut up in a retort, nor be able to see 
an ocean in a raindrop even under the microscope, 
nor discover a "milky- way" in a molecule. Nor 
will you see the mystery and soul and power of 
speech under the bark of etymological roots; 
nor will you see the palpitating life and passionate 
struggle of the animal creation in the fossil frag- 
ments that sow the rocks and sandpits; nor will 
you see in the crust of the earth and the strata 
of rocks the tumultuous fires, the cataclysmic 
storms, the multitudinous life that constituted 
the soul and true being of all that world-formative 
process; nor yet will you be able to see in the 
nerve-centres and blood-corpuscles and brain- 



32 God and Man 

cells of man the greatness of a great soul or the 
glory of character. Christ was not seen and yet 
He was not hidden. No scientific analysis coiild 
discover Him. No petty soul could ever behold 
Him. It is more difficult to catch the outlines 
of a great personality than to see the outlines of a 
continent. There are things that are not hidden 
and yet lie open only to lives capable of great 
vision. All the vastest truths and facts have this 
character in common. There is a limit to what 
minute analysis can reveal. The microscope in 
itself can not go beyond the little, nor can the 
telescope reveal the large if the soul that looks 
through it is small. The greatest things, I am 
persuaded, do not await more cunning instruments ; 
they await the coming of more majestic lives. 
They await what they have always waited for. 
What hinders or has ever hindered any man from 
taking in wide horizons but his own lack of eleva- 
tion. Or what hinders or has ever hindered 
him from seeing great truths but his own little- 
ness? It is not scientific acuteness, it is large 
philosophic vision that sees the greatest truths. 
Even when, by scientific effort, a truth of elemen- 
tal greatness and world-transforming significance 
is discovered, it is not the nicety of the experi- 
ment, or the minuteness of the analysis, it is not 
the scientific method, as such, that makes the 
great discovery; it is the great mind back of the 
critical process. It is the philosopher in the 



The Human Envelops 33 

scientist who really gets the revelation. Laws 
of gravitation do not flash upon little minds let 
them ever so nicely observe falling apples. It is 
given now, as it always has been given, to the 
great and rich lives alone to behold the things 
of universal greatness. Whenever a majestic 
personality steps forth upon the earth, majestic 
discovery, in the inner or outer world, follows. 
Whether the method be this or that; whether 
it be the introspective look, or critical analysis, 
or reflective insight, or ratiocinative process, or 
intuitive vision, or mystical meditation, or "cold" 
scientific experiment, the great revelation comes 
only to the great life. The vastest things, like 
the earth and like the sky, are the most open 
things. Not every eye that turns heavenward 
really sees that majestical frame of things. They 
err who think that great worlds are hid in out- 
of-the-way corners, or that any "smart" observer 
could discover them if only he had a sufficiently 
cunning eye-glass. Minute scientific method has 
its limits. Great souls alone see the visions. 
Open to them are the mighty facts and truths, 
hidden from all others they will ever remain. 

Thus in broad outline the importance of heredity 
and history is openly seen. 

To the large philosophic look the great facts 
lie open like continents to the eye of day. This 
is what is seen by the larger vision. And this, 
moreover, is what is confirmed b" scientific inves- 



34 God and Man 

ligation. Whether one takes the extreme or the 
moderate view of the scope of heredity, its in- 
fluence still remains great. Into the long story 
of investigation we could not here go, were we 
capable. Our proposed limits forbid that. But 
it would seem to be the common judgment of 
scientific men that heredity is no minor truth. 
The last half-century, if no other, has made this 
evident. The cumulative external evidence bear- 
ing on the theory of evolution, and the history 
of embryonic and foetal development through 
ascending stages, add their strong confirmatory 
testimony. In short, scientific inquiry confirms 
the conclusion of our philosophic survey that 
heredity is a fact of wide range and importance. 
How numberless the influences are that come 
out of the past we but feebly conceive. The 
connection of a human life with the past is like 
the connection of a tree with nature. Into what a 
past a great tree roots itself. It is rooted into all 
the ages of the earth's crust. Down into ten- 
thousand forgotten changes, down into a multi- 
tude of by-gone processes, down into countless 
epochs and transformations, that mark the periods 
of the soil's long and changeful history, it sends 
its roots. What infinity of connection the great 
tree has with all that past. One has only to see a 
great oak overturned by a hurricane, or standing 
on a river-bank after a flood has washed away the 
soil and laied bare half its roots — a very network 



The Human Envelops 35 

and tangle of them, — to be impressed with the 
thousand-fold connection of the tree with the 
earth. Into what a past the tree roots itself, 
and with what complexity of connection it touches 
all that past. And into what a past the tree lifts 
up its towering form. It lifts up its trunk and 
sends out its branches into an atmosphere that 
has passed through more changes than there are 
stars in the sky. And it spreads out its leaves 
to falling dews and rains that have fallen and 
risen again, that have passed from sky to earth, 
from earth to sea, from sea to sky, and down to 
earth again more times than there are leaves upon 
the tree. And the same leaves spread out to sun- 
beams that carry within their subtle being effects 
of past processes more numerous than the miles 
through which they have sped. All the change- 
ful history of the sun, all its cycles and transmu- 
tations through an indefinite past of ever-during 
change are recorded in those sunbeams. They 
touch the leaves with chemic touch and all solar 
history expresses itself to a degree in present 
influence there. Into what a past the tree lifts 
itself up and branches itself out. It is an alto- 
gether marvellous story. And how innumerable 
are the points of contact that the tree has with 
air and dew and light. If one followed the tree 
from trunk to lofty crest and each spreading limb 
and branch and leaf, and noted the many open 
mouths of each separate and single leaf, one would 



36 God and Man 

then have only a just conception of that contact. 
Certainly it is a marvellous past the tree lifts 
itself up and branches itself out into; and it is a 
marvellous past into which it sends down its 
roots. It requires the deliberate and sustained 
exercise of imaginative power justly to conceive 
that past or that connection. 

But is a tree more complex than a man? Is 
nature into which a tree is set more manifold than 
humanity into which man is set? Is the past 
therefore into which man is rooted and branched 
any less infinite, and his connection therewith 
any less manifold than the past into which the 
tree is set and its connection therewith? — Of course 
man is set into nature as well as into humanity, 
and all that has been said about the tree can be 
said from the same point of view of him as well. 
But for the present we make account only of his 
human past. —Undoubtedly heredity and history 
are facts of thousand-fold present significance. 
The tree helps us rightly to conceive this. Un- 
doubtedly man's human past, in all the aspects 
and forces of heredity, and in all the phases and 
processes and influences of history, is a well-nigh 
infinite thing. 

The family, the community, the nation, the 
race, humanity, heredity, and history — these are 
the human envelopes that we have hitherto taken 
note of. In addition to these man is ensphered 



The Human Envelops 37 

by civilisation, by the evolutionary process, and 
by the spirit of the age. 

Every man is a child of the present world-status. 
He embodies the civilisation of his age. The 
twentieth-century man does not express thir- 
teenth-century civilisation. He expresses the civi- 
lisation of to-day. Not that in every respect and 
with literal minuteness he must be the child of the 
present status. There may be seventeenth-cen- 
tury elements lingering on in untimely influence 
within him. Or there may be twenty-first-century 
elements uttering themselves in first preludes. 
In the great main, however, every man is the child 
of the present status. 

All that this signifies it is impossible more than 
to approximate. Civilisation is a word of ency- 
clopaedic meaning. It has as many aspects 
and phases as the surface of the earth. To be 
the child of the present world-status is to be the 
focus and utterance of a myriad processes and 
powers. No one suspects that his life is such an 
infinite conglomerate until he enters somewhat 
upon the serious business of reflection. To be 
the child of an American or a European civilisa- 
tion means more things than all the v/ise ones 
could tell. To repeat the story of the manipula- 
tion of fire alone, from the time when two sticks 
were rubbed together to the time when Niagara 
Falls was harnessed and turned into electricity 
and heat to light and warm homes miles distant, 



38 God and Man 

is to repeat — ^we know not what. It represents 
more experiences, more hard necessities, more 
adaptations, flashes of genius and invention, 
than one could spell out in a twelvemonth. Yet 
every child is born an heir to all this without 
effort. He drinks it in much as the Italian orange 
groves and the vineyards along the Rhine drink 
in the favouring influences of climate. 

Or to tell the story of the cultivation of the 
soil from the time when primitive man ineffect- 
ually scratched it with a crooked stick, to the 
time when the modern farmer comfortably rides 
his steam-plough over his broad acres, sitting on a 
spring seat and guiding the machine while it 
easily rolls over a splendid fturow, straight as a 
line far as the eye can see, is to recount a tale of 
struggle, vicissitude, hardship, and inventive 
triumph which only the great book of the Past 
has compass enough duly to record. Yet here 
again a child is born into all this simply by being 
born into the modern world. He buys a plough 
and learns to manipulate it with less effort than 
that with which the Alaskan Indian learns to spear 
fish. Thus the fruits that have grown on so 
many successive life-trees drop so easily, compara- 
tively, into his lap. 

Or take the story of the abode of man. Follow 
it from the time when the leader of the tribe with 
the rest had nothing better than a cave in the 
rocks, down through unrecorded and recorded 



The Human Envelops 39 

centuries, to the time when a captain of modern 
industry dwells alone with his family in a spacious 
house — a very palace for convenience and comfort. 
That cave and this ample abode — ^what a preg- 
nant contrast ! Through what a past the dweller 
looks when he looks through his plate-glass win- 
dows. What echoes of what a past sound in his 
ears when he hears the ring of the electric bell. 
How different the drip of the water in the rock- 
roofed cave from the patter of the rain on the 
copper-sheeted roof above his head. The long, 
long life-history of man echoes in that difference. 
What a past is spread out before him as he sits 
down at his well-filled board. His long-forgotten 
forbears fed on the bark of roots, he eats bread 
grown on the western plains and ground by the 
steel-roller process. Between those roots and 
that fine flour how many developmental processes 
are to be crowded. And when, by turning a 
button, he turns night into day, what a long 
evolutional process he lights up for the imagination. 
And when he lies down on his bed at night, which 
forms to every curve of his body, what a different 
sound from the rustle of that bed of leaves on 
the cave floor. Once more, we repeat, with 
what comparative ease the modern child enters 
into all this heritage. 

These few illustrations must suffice merely 
to suggest the world of light which we mean by 
modern civilisation, albeit we have not even 



I 



40 God and Man 

mentioned the distinctively intellectual and spirit- 
ual elements thereof. Into such a light-world 
every one of us is born; by such a light-world 
we are environed. Civilisation enfolds us round 
and touches us in multitudinous ways. We, 
for our part, cowork with it and react upon it in a 
multitude of ways. We thereby become partici- 
pators in, and utterances of, the present world- 
status. 

Again. Man is held in the grasp not only of 
the present world-status, or civilisation, but also 
in that of a developmental process or evolution. 
The status is not static in the absolute sense. 
The present is a stage in a process and a part of a 
universal ongoing. So that man is held within an 
onmoving process as a drop of water is held within 
the onmoving river. Whether the general scien- 
tific statement of evolution shall undergo limita- 
tion at the hands of more thorough inquiry or not, 
there can be no sort of question that we and all 
things are involved in a process of development. 
The present century is not a mere mechanical 
repetition of the past. Something gets' done. 
Something new is begun, something old passes 
away. There is an ongoing. The age in which 
we live is not that of Homer, or of Pericles, or 
of Augustus, or of Charlemagne. And the general 
geologic period in which we are set is not the 
Carboniferous or the Glacial. There is a world- 



The Human Envelops 41 

process unfolding and unfolding with the passing 
centuries. From fire- mist to earth-crust, to 
Athens, to London, is an altogether wonderful 
progression. And all human-kind forms part of 
the process and is swept onward with it. It is 
bewildering to think of the myriad-sided relation- 
ship implied in all this. The last few decades 
have thought thereupon with unprecedented 
thoroughness. Scientific study and imagination 
have disclosed unsuspected complexity. We had 
thought, with all children, that it is a very simple 
thing to live. We are reminded that it is an 
endlessly complicated thing. To be a part of a 
universal process, to embody that process, and 
utter its progression in ourselves, is to involve 
an infinitude of touches and commerces which 
only a universal mind could compass. More 
than all that has been suggested before needs to 
be said and suggested anew in this connection. 
But with these mere hints and nothing more we 
must be content. Suffice it that we here see a 
great new sphere of movement and meaning 
enveloping man. He is included in a mighty 
world-process, embodying countless ideals and 
moving toward ideal goals. To be thus involved 
imports relationships without end. 

Once more we see what we have so often seen 
hitherto, that man is ensphered and ensphered 
by many worlds, and that he has and must have 
multitudinous commerces therewith. This is the 



42 God and Man 

very make and go and fact of things. Scientific 
inquiry and philosophic insight here disclose but 
do not create what is. It is the very fact-world 
that here gets revealed. And this is the actual 
relation of man to the Universe. In the light 
of this relation alone the higher life is to be 
revealed and interpreted. 

A smaller envelope within the greater enfolding 
spheres which we call civilisation and evolution 
is the Zeitgeist. Every man breathes the spirit 
of his time. "No history, " says Clifford, "can be 
philosophic which does not trace the origin and 
course of these [changes in the spirit of the age] : 
things far more important than all the kings and 
rulers and battles and dates which some people 
imagine to be history." We must leave this, 
however, merely suggested, not elaborated. In a 
modified form what has been said above may be 
understood here. A new sphere is thus brought 
into the account.- 



CHAPTER III 

THE ENFOLDING WORLD-ALL IN ITS MANY SPHERES 

C. The Higher Spheres That Enfold Man 

HITHERTO we have studied in the main the 
physical and the human envelopes of man. 
But besides being held in the grasp of earth and 
atmosphere, sunlight and sun, universe and law, 
climate and topography, day and night, summer 
and winter; family, community, nationality, 
race, and humanity ; heredity, history, civilisation, 
evolution, and the Zeitgeist, man is held in the 
grasp of Truth, Beauty, and Ideals. Last and 
greatest, because inclusive of all the others, 
man is held within the Life of God. 

Although in our consideration thus far the 
physical aspects of man's relation to the World- 
All have stood prominently forth, it is not thereby 
intended that they should appear to be the reg- 
nant aspects, or to constitute the major part of 
the Kingdom of Worlds. Even in what appeared 
most physical it was always the total man — 
feeling, intellect, will, and all — that was related 
to the total environment. There was always the 
higher spiritual element in greater or smaller 

43 



44 God and Man 

proportion. And throughout, the physical has 
been used largely to suggest the subtler elements 
of Reality. Throughout, for our thought, the 
myriad contacts have been, at bottom, not ma- 
terial but spiritual, and the myriad powers have 
been only apparently, not really, what men call 
"physical" — ^if any one knows what "physical" 
means. If it should turn out ultimately to 
mean merely a lower form of spiritual manifesta- 
tion, then our infinitude of relationships and 
influences would at last be seen to be, in their in- 
most character, spiritual. Always, for us, our 
earths have rested, not on rock foundations, 
solid as they may seem, but on subtle, inscrutable, 
spiritual powers, stronger and more original than 
the rocks. And our worlds have been flung out 
on spirit-wings to speed them among the stars 
with the flight of sunbeams, and the perfection 
and ease. And mankind was fastened thereto, 
not with chains of iron, but with spiritual bands, 
infinitely more effective and enduring, so free 
was the hold and yet so firm, so exquisitely perfect. 
And when the environing world has seemed most 
crude in its touch and influence, there always has 
been, for finer vision, an underlying subtlety. 
The effective contacts of nature with the tree, 
for example, are not so crude as they seem. The 
delicate touch upon the rootlets with their sen- 
sitive tips; the subtle contacts with the leaves, 
gentle as falling dew; the chemic touch of light, 



The Higher Envelops 45 

more delicate than the kiss of the soft air — these 
are in reality the effective contacts of nature with 
the tree, these the points at which and the touches 
through which the real work and business is 
done. 

So is it with nature's effective touches upon 
man. Back of seeming crudeness there is always 
real fineness. He is not banged and battered into 
shape. He grows. He unfolds from within as 
all living things do. He involves the inscrutable 
subtleties of all life-processes. He is touched with 
the spiritual touch of the Dawn, or of advancing 
springtime, or of the breath of the ocean, or of 
the currents of atmosphere, or of climatic con- 
ditions, or of vast and fertile plains, or of life- 
conditioning hills and lofty mountains. The air 
touches him with all the delicacy and efficiency 
of breathing. The sunlight touches him with 
the subtlety and spirituality of seeing. Even the 
food that seems to enter him in chunks can effect 
nothing in that crude manner. It must find 
capillaries more sensitive and delicate than gossa- 
mer threads. It must pass in through walls 
thinner than soap-bubbles. It must move along 
through a most exquisite system of canals. It 
must then be taken up by ten million cells, 
through openings infinitesimally minute, in ways 
inconceivably subtle. Only in this delicate fashion 
does that which seemed at the start so crudely 
effective finally come to any effect whatever. 



46 God and Man 

The actual formative touches of the world upon 
man are all of the subtle kind. Nature is never 
effective until she becomes fine. Do the fields 
feed man? It is done in the most exquisite 
way. Does sunlight warm him and illumine 
his darkness? Nothing could be subtler than 
the process thereof. Does the earth hold him? 
What coiild be more perfect than the way it is 
done? Do continents and oceans, latitudes and 
altitudes, changing seasons and successions of 
day and night condition him? It is all so subtly 
done that he wots not the process thereof. And 
many live and die never realising the invisible 
atmospheres that nevertheless have conditioned 
all their living. 

Subtler still and more multiplied are all the 
human influences from out the past that meet in 
him, and the complicated and multiplied elements 
of a present enfolding civilisation, and the myriad- 
sided contacts of an ensphering humanity, itself 
inscrutably complex and ever-changing, and per- 
petually moving toward still more multiform 
complexity. Subtler and more complicated than 
the climates and atmospheres and sunlights of 
earth are the affective and the intellectual and 
the spiritual climates and atmospheres of the 
World- All. Range above range, realm above 
realm, rise all the planes of Reality. From the 
lowest, crassest, so-called "material substance," 
up to the highest, finest, spiritual Reality, extends 



The Higher Envelops 47 

the wide gamut of Being. And man is set into 
all this wide range. His feet stand upon every 
plane. He touches and is in living contact with 
all that is. As the tree is rooted down into one 
element, and lifted up and branched out into 
another, and in contact with another (the vapory 
clouds), and yet another still higher (the sun- 
light), so man is rooted down as it were into 
the physical and lifted up into commerce with 
the spiritual. He touches all worlds, he lives 
upon all. He breathes all atmospheres, he sees 
by all sunlights, he is affected by all climates. 
Himself a spiritual being, he is environed by 
what is at bottom, we shall say, a spiritual Uni- 
verse. His feet are upon the solid earth, his 
thoughts "beyond the shining stars." He lives 
a wide-ranging life when he is truly himself. 
This is the sort of Universe it is into which man 
is set. Ten thousand intellectual and spiritual 
influences play upon him like sunbeams and pene- 
trate with efficacy to the inmost core of his being. 
Looking therefore upon a Universe that widens 
as one rises from the earth, and grows greater and 
more spiritual and more involved as one ascends 
the ethereal heights, and knowing that the heav- 
ens hold the earth and not the earth the heavens 
in their grasp, we are enabled to set man into his 
true Environment and are prepared to appreciate 
somewhat the thousand-fold spiritual influences 
of Truth upon him. 



48 God and Man 

For primitive man, for men engrossed in affairs, 
and for unrefiective men generally, the word 
"truth" has comparatively little conscious mean- 
ing. For philosophic minds, on the other hand, 
and for ripe and reflective men in general, truth 
has a world of significance. Truth meant a vastly 
different thing to the consciousness of Socrates 
or of Plato from what it meant to the conscious- 
ness of the goat-herds on the Attic hills. Pilate's 
question, What is truth? showed how shadowy 
and unreal all the truth- world was to him. Jesus' 
declaration, on the contrary, that He was the 
king of truth, that for this cause He was born and 
to this end He came into the world that He might 
bear witness to the truth, revealea how real, liv- 
ing, and significant truth was to Him. Scarcely 
anything is more striking and suggestive than 
the meaning of the world of truth to different 
minds. To one man it is a vague and unsubstan- 
tial something, or nothing, to be little, or not at 
all, regarded as it pleases him. To another it is 
more real than oceans and continents, a thing 
by all means to live for and to die for, sacred 
and supreme. Truth appears to come to some, 
so far as their conscious life is concerned, with 
much of the impotence and unpracticalness of 
moonlight, and even great principles seem to them 
as far away and feeble in their working as the 
scintillating stars. To others truth is like an 
ever-present sunlight, indispensable to the very 



The Higher Envelops 49 

being of mind, the illumination of all inner worlds, 
the life of their life ; and great principles are like 
shining suns enlightening worlds and holding 
systems in their unbreakable grasp. 

To this shadowyness and impotence, on the 
one hand, and this reality and power, on the other, 
correspond two different philosophical views. 
The one may be termed the trivial, the other the 
serious, view of truth. The two views are as 
old as the birth of philosophy. For the Sophists, 
truth was no more to realities than shadows to 
trees. For Plato, truth was the only thing in 
the universe that had reality and causality in 
the absolute sense. And at the present day, for 
one type of thought truth is little more than what 
photographs are to the Alps mountains. The 
actual things ever3rwhere are the solid earths 
and the real beings and processes and cycles 
and events. The mental conceptions thereof, 
the Veritas about things, are mere intellectual 
duplicates, unsubstantial repetitions, which add 
nothing to and take nothing from "real things," 
which make the world of realities neither richer 
nor poorer. "There are stars and there are 
earths," says this type of thought, "there are 
trees and there are men, there are powers and 
there are activities, — these are the real things. 
Then there are humanly convenient cognitions 
of these, and idle comments upon them. But 
the stars are not multiplied by some man's sitting 



50 God and Man 

up o' nights to gaze through a telescope; and the 
Western World was there before Columbus cog- 
nised it, and the sequoias tossed their heads aloft 
before any one was there to exclaim, Majestic! 
and babies were facts before they could say, 
I am; and the earth turned round in reality 
before it turned round in Copernicus' head." 
"Thoughts, " this view continues, "are convenient 
cognitions of realities and idle comments upon 
them. " 

This of course is the trivial view of truth. 
The term is not at all meant as a reflection, for 
admittedly to this view truth is a slight and trivial 
thing as compared with what it is to the other 
view. 

To this other view, the serious view, as we have 
termed it, truth is a reality more primal and more 
potent than "things." The acorn develops into 
an oak and not into a palm ; the date develops 
into a palm and not into an oak. There is some- 
thing in the acorn that gives law and command- 
ment to its unfolding. That something it heeds 
w4th perfection of obedience. If all the acorns 
that have dropped from a thousand forests were 
planted in as many places with as many differing 
environments, not one of them all would be in 
the slightest degree tempted to depart from the 
law of its being and unfold into a palm. Some- 
thing forbids it; that something it invariably 
obeys. We may call that something what we 



The Higher Envelops 51 

will — ^inherent idea, thought, ideal, form, law, 
truth — it remains the same dominating power 
under whatever name, to which every atom of 
the oak's being is obedient. 

In like manner the hen's egg develops into 
a chick, the alligator's egg, into an alligator. 
There is no departure from this. Within the 
substance of the particular egg inheres the law of 
its being, the idea of its kind. Under the posses- 
sion of that idea all its doings and becomings take 
place as though each several molecule were in- 
stinct with that particular kind of life and no 
other. 

In like manner, also, the human ovum develops 
into a human being, whereas the ovum of a 
guinea-pig, though indistinguishable therefrom, as 
is claimed, under the most powerful microscope, 
invariably develops into a guinea-pig. Undoubt- 
edly there is a power that absolutely permeates 
and dominates each. Each is under the law of 
an inhering idea. 

Ideas turn out then to be significant. Truths 
result in being not idle comments but potent 
realities that give law and commandment to 
things. They are not to trees what shadows 
are, nor to ova, human or other, what photo- 
graphs are. They rule their little or large worlds 
with a perfection of process and effect that makes 
kings seem but clumsy apprentices. 

These are but examples. Everywhere the 



52 God and Man 

same regnancy of ideas is manifest. All the 
vegetation of the world — from the lichen that 
clings to the rock to the sequoia of the Calaveras 
grove ; from the weed to the rose ; from the grass- 
blade to the bending wheat-stock — ^is the expres- 
sion and embodiment of ideas. Every worm 
that crawls upon the ground, every fish that 
swims in the sea, every bird that flies in the air, 
every animal that breathes — from the sea-flower 
to the elephant ; from the protozoon to the chim- 
panzee, up to the genus humanum — ^is likewise 
the expression and embodiment of ideas. Yes; 
the universal process itself, from fire-mist to 
flaming sun, to tumultuous storm-rent, but cool- 
ing planet, to orderly world teeming with life, is 
but the progressive utterance and realisation of 
ideas. 

All this for the same reason that the acorn does 
not turn into the palm, nor the alHgator egg into 
the chick, nor the human ovum into the guinea- 
pig. Throughout the vegetal and the animal 
kingdoms there is no seed, there is no egg that 
does not know the law of its kind. From the 
primordial cell up to the sessile animal where 
the two kingdoms appear to meet, up to man the 
crown of all, atoms are organised into specific and 
individual forms. The law of kind is absolute. 
All things are brought into subjection thereto. 
Ideas then are not shadows or idle comments. 
The kingdoms are theirs. As wide as are the 



The Higher Envelops 53 

realms of life, so wide at least are the realms of 
ideas. 

But we already have seen that, beyond the 
organic world, earths and solar systems and milky 
ways and universal processes are themselves utter- 
ances and realisations of ideas. As far as order ex- 
tends and as far as process is progressing toward an 
understandable goal, so far certainly, in the vast 
and limitless reaches of space, the World- Whole 
is the manifestation and embodiment of ideas. 

As far as progress extends, — that is manifest. 
But is an ordered world teeming with life the 
only goal of which we have any hint? Have we 
not heard already of moons frozen, desolate, and 
stationary? And shall we not hear of earths 
cooled off and mantled in eternal snows? And 
of suns burnt out like cinders and as cold as the 
ethereal spaces? And shall not starlight, sun- 
light, moonlight, all vanish as a dream and the 
cosmos once more return to "Old Night" as it 
was? And shall not ever-during midnight reign, 
broken only by what would appear the mockery 
of light, the occasional flash of a meteor as the 
fragment of some shattered body strikes our 
atmosphere with fitful gleam and goes out again 
in unbroken night ? Is not this the goal at which 
scientific thought more than hints? Is this then 
the so-called dominion of ideas? An evolution 
indeed this — toward universal death! "Eine 
schoene Geschichtel " 



54 God and Man 

Can one then say that ideas reign? Despite 
the apparently significant chapters now being 
written in the great book of events, if the end is 
what it is prophesied to be, do not ideas turn out 
impotent and uncrowned kings? Do they indeed 
hold worlds in their grasp if they come to such 
final defeat? 

True this is a scientific prediction and it gives 
the believer in ideas no little perplexity. Still 
one may well distrust such a barren conclusion. 

In the first place all would not be lost. Much 
order would yet remain. The moon though already 
burnt out is very well behaved. The cosmos on 
the worst showing would not be resolved back 
into fire-mist. All therefore would not be even 
apparently lost. 

Moreover, it may be that nothing is really lost, 
A glacial period has proved before a stage in 
the process of world-making. Other things also 
besides seeds and men may die to live. ' ' Stirb und 
werde" may be the law of macrocosms as well 
as of microcosms. Besides, we know too little 
about those far-off events. The thought of w^hat 
preludings of new cosmic processes may ere then 
be seen, should fitly give us pause. World- 
processes heretofore have not slipped through 
either the careless or impotent fingers of God. 
All appears hitherto to have been grasped into a 
unity of progress. Indeed it is difficult often 
for man to say when the on-moving river has 



The Higher Envelops 55 

been eddying and when advancing. What ap- 
peared but eddying may be progress in disguise. 
No man is wise enough to say to the contrary. 
The Past has been an ahogether majestic story. 
All the acts have been taken up, apparently, 
into the unity of the grand cosmic drama. The 
Present continues to be the manifestation of 
victorious ideas. Shall the Future then alone 
eventuate in defeat? Hitherto we have been 
impressed with the grandeur of the movement. 
We are still. Shall the Future then alone lose 
the grasp of events and not know how to carry 
on the cosmic drama? Shall the universal heav- 
ens no longer be able to go round the happenings 
of worlds and hold them in a unity of ordered 
action? Shall not rather the predicted night of 
the Universe break into a grander day, and the 
predicted death rise into a higher life? 

Futhermore, the following significant fact shall 
be steadily considered. The past is comparatively 
open to us. The present also is known. But 
the future is, in the main, hidden. What we 
really know is progress. What we are not sure 
of is arrested development. As far as the process 
until now has wrought itself out, the movement 
has been an onward one. The general unknown 
character of all the future, tiierefore, shall be 
permitted to discount our wisest guesses as to 
that far-off future. 

What is more, even the known past and present 



56 God and Man 

are only very imperfectly known. The familiar 
atmosphere and sunlight have but recently re- 
vealed unsuspected new elements. The com- 
plexity and mystery of the physical world about 
us grow perpetually more bewildering. We sketch 
our explored worlds even with no masterful hand 
as yet. How much less can we map out the far- 
off cosmic status with absoluteness. Slumbering 
beneath our very feet may be unguessed powers 
of regeneration. If in the diffused fire-mist 
could lurk the potencies of all the cosmic drama 
thus far, shall the ordered Universe itself now 
become incapable ? 

Once more : This physical system itself is only 
a part, not the whole. There are other universes 
besides the physical. There are universes of 
affection, of thought, of will, of truth, of beauty, 
of spirit. Universal Reality must be vast enough 
to include them all. This physical system there- 
fore can be, at most, but one continent on the 
world-map. Whatever is said about it, conse- 
quently, must be said with the consciousness 
of all the other present continents. We must not 
draw the boundaries of this continent alone and 
think we have mapped out the total World. The 
World- Whole must be sketched more magnificently. 
Hence whatever scientific thought may, wisely or 
unwisely, forecast as to the future physical status, 
it must all be set into the vaster universal Reality 
and interpreted in the light of the great Whole. 



The Higher Envelops 57 

Still again: Even the universal process, as 
sketched by the larger evolutionary thought, is 
plainly not the whole process. What was before 
the diffused fire-mist? And what shall be after 
the burnt-out cinder-status? Something was, 
and something shall be. Thus even the larger 
evolution gives us only a limited span between 
limitless extensions. Beyond fire-mist was an 
inconceivable past process. Beyond cinder-status 
shall be again an inconceivable future process. 
The story of evolution is therefore but one chapter, 
so to speak, in the midst of a great book. That 
chapter must be comprehended in its setting. It 
is unallowable, not to say futile, to attempt to 
understand it otherwise. The story of the single 
evolutionary chapter, as is plain to see, must be 
taken up into the much larger story of the whole 
book, and the conclusion of the one chapter, the 
cinder-status as we have termed it, must be under- 
stood in the light of all the chapters, and of the 
great book as a whole. For how can a single 
stage in a process be the whole process? And 
how can the terminal of one stage be the goal 
of all the stages that went before and of all that 
shall follow ? This magnificent cosmic processional 
must needs stop short in such case. From fire- 
mist to cinder-status is a grand stage, but it is 
only a part of a much larger Whole, and must be 
subordinated thereto in order to become, from 
a philosophical point of view, even intelligible. 



58 God and Man 

Consequently when scientific prediction says 
to us, "Look you! universal death is the end of 
all" ; we shall answer: "Are you sure that what 
you see is death? May it not be slumbering 
life? Has it not proved so in the past?" We 
shall say: "Are you certain that things then 
shall have even the appearance of death? Have 
not the potencies of spring lain dormant be- 
neath the snows of every winter? And shall we 
not look also for preludes of many a new cosmic 
process before that far-off day?" And when 
prediction shall say: "Look! these flaming suns 
shall be burnt-out cinders, this magnificent pro- 
cess shall all come to an inglorious end" ; we shall 
answer: "When was the veil of the future thus 
taken down? We hardly can say we know the 
past, or even the present. How then can we say 
so dogmatically what is to be, when as yet it is 
not, nor shall be for a thousand million years? 
And has the thing we know best no remaining 
mystery? Is the present physical world an open 
book as yet, a tale quite told ? Can we know the 
mystery of matter and form so well for seons 
unborn, whereas we know them so ill for the age 
that now is? " Or when scientific prediction says, 
"The goal of all the physical world is this"; we 
shall answer: "The physical is not all, nor is it 
the major part of the Whole. The wide gamut of 
Being knows of worlds upon worlds above the 
physical. Those realms beyond realms must be 



The Higher Envelops 59 

taken into the account. The real Universe must 
be conceived in an ampler fashion. No mere 
physiography can suffice." Or when prediction 
says, ' ' Evolution eventuates thus " ; we shall reply : 
"What is even the larger evolution but a minor 
part of a vastly more extensive process? And 
even though it eventuate thus — which is pro- 
blematical — the meaning of this same 'thus' can 
not begin to be understood except in the light 
of the universal process itself. Evolution is but 
a part of a larger Whole. " 

We therefore shall claim that as all the past 
submergings of continents have been stages in the 
process of world-building, so all the future enig- 
matical epochs shall be taken up into the unity 
and triumph of the universal process. All that 
is, all that shall be, shall prove understandable. 
Thus ideas shall hold the ordered world in their 
dominating grasp. 

So much for the ordered universe. 

But is this a Universe at all ? Has it not yet to 
be proved a Universe ? Are there not other things 
than order? other regions than the realms of 
light? Have Chaos and Chance and Error and 
Unsinn no fields where they pitch unmolested 
their dusky tents? And are there not intimations 
that those fields are very broad ? that they may 
be even more extensive than the realms of light 
and order? So some have claimed. But this 
is to be over-wise concerning those vague and 



6o God and Man 

shadowy outskirts of Being. It is to go beyond, 
we venture to think, even intelligent guesses. 
What is near to us and what we know is an ordered 
world. What we are impressed with is a sublime 
reign of law, a majestic celestial order. Es springt 
in die Augen. The revelations of the microscope 
and of the telescope alike are of intelligible worlds. 
The earth beneath and the heavens above declare 
a glory. Science has ground for its magnificent 
faith in a universal reign of law. The shadowy 
outskirts of Reality may be this or that — ^we 
know not —but the wide kingdoms of Being so 
far as they have come within our ken have inspired 
us with their marvellous order. Even the comets 
report regularly. This is what impresses, even 
amazes, chemist and astronomer, physicist and 
biologist. And rightly we think do they project 
the unknown curve from the arc that is known; 
saying that the wider exploration extends, the 
more extended becomes the reign of discovered 
law ; the unknown accordingly must be of a piece 
with the known; this frame of things must be a 
System, a Cosmos, a Universe. 

And thus we shall have it that, high over all, 
ideas hold sway. Even the kingdoms that are 
most rebellious are still theirs. 

Finally, from a philosophic point of view, it 
is of weight to observe that the words themselves 
* ' chaos, " " chance, " " error, " " Unsinn, " etc. , 
could not be even understood except in the light 



The Higher Envelops 6i 

of "order," "plan," "truth," and "reason." 
If these very words have to come and bow down 
to their opposites to get even a meaning, perhaps 
it is no accident. Order and plan, truth and 
reason, it may be, wield legitimate and inherent, 
not usurped or borrowed, sceptres. In the very 
conception of their opposites they show themselves 
to be law-giving. Ideas reign of right and can 
not be discrowned even in thought. 

Well-nigh the whole inorganic world crystallises 
in definite ways from the crystal of rock to the 
crystal of snow. The whole chemic world com- 
bines according to definite laws. The entire 
world of life unfolds in definite ways toward 
definite forms, from the amoeba to man. Worlds 
and systems develop. All is held within the 
grasp of law and of ideas. Notwithstanding 
many apparently refractory facts, the theory 
that this whole of things is a Cosmos is the only 
theory that works. One cannot make a beginning 
even in thought with the chaos-theory. As such 
and in itself it can not be conceived. And when 
one goes forth and thinks he applies it to the facts 
of the great world and accordingly declares that 
he finds after all no order anywhere, he really 
declares that there is order, at least in his own 
mental operations, inasmuch as they are sane 
enough to make the declaration. But if the 
declaration were strictly true he could never know 
it, because the analysis that dissolved the band of 



62 God and Man 

the Universe would have dissolved the band of 
the mind as well, the band of sanity ; and an insane 
mind in the midst of a chaotic Universe could 
not know even the universal chaos. Accordingly 
science assumes that this is a Cosmos, postulates 
the unlimited reign of law, the universal validity 
of cause and effect, and the essential intelligibility 
of the whole. And under this banner she has 
conquered wide kingdoms. 

All we conclude is held within the grasp of 
ideas. From the microscopic to the telescopic 
worlds the might of the spiritual holds dominion. 

"It is true, " says one, "that an invisible power 
of some sort holds the molecule within and with- 
out, as an ravisible power holds the earth within 
and without, when flung forth in space, pendent 
on nothing, based on nothing apparent. But 
is it really an immaterial power that holds the 
earth and all celestial bodies? Without the sun, 
for example, where would be the spiritual grip 
upon the earth of which you speak? The spirit- 
ual grip turns out then to be a solar grip, does 
it not?" 

Closer examination will provide an answer. 
How does the sun grasp the earth an3rway? 
with material or with immaterial hand? Let 
the sun be as crassly material as you will, yet 
its grip of the earth is not material. It reaches 
out no material hand over the wide millions of 



The Higher Envelops 63 

space. And the instant a mass goes beyond its 
own material self and wields effective influence 
at a distance, in the nature of things that influence 
can not be material. Nor has it any of the charac- 
teristics of the material. One can not see the 
law of gravitation. One can not touch it. It 
is not ponderable. That which gives weight 
to all is itself imponderable. It does not occupy 
space. It is not divisible. It has no inertia. 
It has, in short, no material characteristic. It is 
then really immaterial power that grasps and 
holds the earth. Not one material touch does 
the all-ruling sun lay upon the earth, not so 
much as the material touch of a gossamer thread. 
It is spiritual power that does the real grasping 
both of earth and sun; yes, of all earths and all 
suns. 

Moreover it is a question whether matter as 
such ever grasps an5rthing. Are not the atoms 
of a molecule or the electrons of an atom held 
together in reality by immaterial powder as truly 
as the members of the solar system? Are not 
chemical affinity, cohesion, adhesion, as imma- 
terial as gravity? Whether in the molecule or 
in the milky way, therefore, the power that holds 
is spiritual, — always more than querying whether 
the atom itself or the electron is not to be con- 
ceived after an immaterial fashion as a centre 
of spiritual power. 

If the trend of the above be correct, we look 



64 God and Man 

forth indeed upon a wide-ranging Universe. 
Above the so-called physical rises range beyond 
range, the vaster universe of Reality. As above 
and beyond the earth rises the wide and boundless 
expanse of space, so above and beyond all the 
physical rise the greater realms of universal Being. 
We must conceive the World- Whole after an infi- 
nite fashion, and the boundlessness of space, with 
more than symbolic fitness and suggestion, aids us 
in the attempt. 

With somewhat of elaboration designedly the 
above study of the higher and vaster worlds has 
been made. For in them because of their great- 
ness our main concern centres. They are the 
truly great and significant worlds. Extended 
consideration accordingly has been, we conceive, 
essential to the just setting of all that shall follow. 
We have now won the right, we think, to say 
that out beyond the physical and human envel- 
opes of man sweep the vaster ethereal spheres 
of Truth, Beauty, Ideals, and Spirit. 

For the present we attend only to the first. 
Man is ensphered by Truth. As the tree is envel- 
oped by atmosphere and sunlight and permeated 
through and through by them in myriads of forma- 
tive ways, so man is ensphered by truth. But 
only an infinite mind knows all the detail of rela- 
tionship and effect.' 

How vast indeed is its working ! albeit meagre 



The Higher Envelops 65 

is our consciousness thereof. Let a truth be 
selected, for example, from the field of mathe- 
matics. Let it be the simple truth that a straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points. 
It is impossible to estimate the extent to which 
this truth conditions practically all life. The fish 
darting for a bait acts upon it but knows it not. 
The spider spinning its web wots not of it but 
obeys it. The ant making war upon an enemy 
unconsciously observes it. The bee flying toward 
the flower or returning to the hive unwittingly 
heeds it. The hawk swooping down on its prey 
obeys it. The dog chasing a deer, or the child 
running for its ball, alike acts upon it unfailingly. 
It conditions practically all life above the lowest 
forms. Nowhere, notwithstanding, does it work 
through knowledge except in man. And even 
in human life, as widely extensive as its influence 
there is, it probably works through knowledge 
only as an exception, through other channels as 
a rule. The child acts upon it but knows it not. 
The lower types of men rarely have full conscious- 
ness of it. The higher types act upon it usually 
intuitively, or through habit. As with the fish, 
the spider, the ant, etc., so, only less so, with 
man; its action is, in the great main, through 
other channels than that of knowledge. 

Let it next be a truth of science. But a short 
time ago comparatively, it was demonstrated 
that heat could be converted into power and 



66 God and Man 

utilised by applying it to water. The British 
Museum itself could not contain the books which 
should undertake to tell of all the results of that 
truth. Almost world-wide has been its influence 
upon man. Yet not one in a thousand of its 
workings has been known, it may be said, by the 
recipient of them all. 

Again, only the other day, comparatively 
speaking, it was shown that heat or power could 
be turned into electricity, and electricity again 
converted into heat, light, or power. The influence 
of this scientific discovery, even in a brief period, 
has been incalculable. For Edison and some 
others there has been considerable consciousness, 
considerable knowledge. For the millions even 
of intelligent men there has been much appro- 
priation of results with little knowledge. One 
gets into a street-car, for instance, on a winter 
evening, sits down, and reads his paper. He is 
carried along by electricity, he is enabled to read 
by electricity, he is warmed by the same elec- 
tricity. How little does he adequately realise of 
all this? The whole thing is about as little an 
affair of knowledge as his breathing is. So in 
general; the influences of this discovered and 
applied truth are unlimited, but the actual con- 
sciousness thereof is most meagre. Nevertheless 
if this particular truth had not been discovered, 
the million-fold resiilt had not followed. Mani- 
festly the wide result was the outworking of the 



The Higher Envelops 67 

scientific discovery. The striking thing is the 
indirectness and unconsciousness of well-nigh 
the total outcome. 

Other scientific truths on examination yield 
a like result. It was discovered that the carbon 
of coal under proper conditions will unite with 
the oxygen of the air. The outworkings of that 
discovery have been incalculable. But a hundred 
families might gather round as many firesides 
and not one give mental heed to the process that 
made possible their comfort. - 

It was discovered that the instantaneous 
combustion of certain materials within confined 
limits would liberate an immense volume of gas 
under high pressure, causing an explosion. Gun- 
powder, and so on, have been the result. Modern 
civilisation has been made thereby different from 
what it would have been. Every child has been in- 
fluenced in more ways than it could learn in a 
term at school. In all probability, however, it did 
not know it had been influenced at all until it 
read about the fact in the books. 

It was discovered that rays of light on being 
passed through a lens are refracted. The micro- 
scope and the telescope followed. The inventors 
themselves, were they with us, could not in a 
life-time trace the ever-augmenting influence of 
their own inventions. Indeed every great ap- 
plied truth has something of the working of great 
natural powers about it. Like the atmosphere 



68 God and Man 

and the rain, like gravitation and cohesion, they 
work, in the great main, unconsciously. Think of 
any great scientific discovery one may, of the 
circulation of the blood, of its aeration, of the law 
of gravitation, of the revolution of the earth upon 
its axis, or about the sun, — the vastness of the 
actual result and the meagre consciousness of the 
same are alike striking. Multitudes are barely 
conscious of any influence whatever, and even 
thoughtful men differ from them only in being a 
little less ignorant. Nevertheless whole sciences 
are largely based upon them, and our higher 
civilisation is very appreciably conditioned by 
them. 

Once more, let the chosen example be the philo- 
sophical thinking of Plato or of Kant. The influ- 
ence of these two systems of thought has been 
unreportable. The intellectual world one lives 
in, the intellectual being one is, are both different 
because of them. Yet hosts of men never once 
in their lives have intelligently spoken the names 
of Kant and Plato. They have been consistently 
guiltless of ever consciously thinking Platonic 
or Kantian thought. To be sure they have done 
to a degree what they did not know they were 
doing. But how meagre was the extent. Most 
men would be utterly surprised on being made 
acquainted with half the scope and depth of that 
influence year by year. They have been as gener- 
ally unconscious of it as men are generally of the 



The Higher Envelops 69 

world and of themselves. Men habitually over- 
look the greatest things with their ever-present 
influence. Accordingly the general unconscious- 
ness that the Platonic and the Kantian and other 
great systems of truth are perpetually condition- 
ing the world in which they live, and contributing 
to the composite beings that they themselves 
are, is nothing accidental. On the contrary, 
it accords with the essential and habitual process 
of things. Great truths in general work, in the 
main, unconsciously. Why should men know of 
their working? Wherefore the prevalent feeling 
of multitudes which asks. What is philosophy 
to me? is in a sense not without cause. Con- 
sciously philosophy is little or nothing to them. 
Unconsciously it is very much. A Socrates, 
living his near yet far-away life, or a Spinoza in 
loneliness, thinking deep things and hoping to 
utter truths destined to shape the lives of genera- 
tions unborn, are always a perplexity and a source 
of amusement to the market-place. But the 
flight of years rewards their pious hope. The 
life of a race becomes thereafter different. Mostly 
unconsciously, however, this subtle leavening 
goes on. 

Finally let the test extend to the world of 
ethical and religious truth. Nowhere is the 
working of truth so subtle, so deep, so inclusive. 
Whether one thinks of a Buddha, a Confucius, 
a Mohammed, a Moses, a Paul, a Luther or of the 



7o God and Man 

Son of Man Himself, one thinks of ethical and 
religious truth that has been nearly or quite as 
a new birth and as a new life to nations and races. 
But how they have been born and have lived 
anew they have been only less conscious of than 
of how they were born and have lived at all. 
No one, I think, who has earned the right to an 
opinion fails to see at once the vastness and the 
hiddenness of the working of such truth. Does 
Christendom know what the Christ-truth has 
done for it? As little as it knows the greatness 
and the mystery of either truth or life. 

Throughout this entire inquiry into the way 
man is set into the World- All, the thought has 
been growing that he lives in touch with a very 
wide-ranging Universe. He is ensphered and 
ensphered. Greater worlds sweep round smaller. 
All worlds hold him in their grasp and effectually 
touch him at ten million points. He knows not 
a tithe of the ways in which he is formed, nor a 
tithe of the influences of which he is the uncon- 
scious child. This is the common way of working, 
to which there is no exception. This is the rela- 
tion of every man to every world. As one in 
thought ascends the heights of Reality, one 
realises that round the life of a man sweeps, 
besides other worlds, the ethereal universe of 
truth. More subtly than an atmosphere, it 
permeates and conditions in a multitude of ways 



The Higher Envelops 71 

all his being and living. Some of these ways he 
knows in part; most of them he is unconscious 
of. Even truth works, in the main, not through 
knowledge. It works as all the other great life- 
conditioning elements work. For all the great 
world-facts and processes, as they enfold and 
form the life of man, are at one in their working. 
Truth differs only to a degree, in that some of 
its workings are relatively more conscious. 

We have attempted to set ourselves vitally 
into the great enfolding ethereal sphere of truth. 
The utmost conceptive and imaginative endeavour 
has been required for only an inadequate result. 
We need to multiply in thought the approaches 
of truth to life. To that end we need to put as 
many windows in man as there are pores in his 
skin. And as the universal light of truth enters 
all windows, the house of his life shall be filled with 
light indeed, but the " how" thereof will be little 
more conscious than the working of sunbeams. 
Not that there is little consciousness, but that 
there is much unconsciousness. We need for 
realisation greatly to multiply and diversify the 
approaches of truth to life. 

It has been thought best to consider at length 
the way in which truth enspheres the life of man. 
Elaboration in this one case must serve to indicate 
the treatment that should be given, did space 
permit, to the other ethereal worlds of beauty, 



72 God and Man 

ideals, and spirit — not to speak of the all-inclusive 
spiritual being, God. We can do no more than 
suggest. The greatness, the omnipresence, and 
the variety of the contact of truth with life must 
indicate to us the greatness, the universalness, 
and the multiplicity of the relationship of beauty, 
ideals, spirit, and the all-inclusive Absolute to 
life. 

The Universe as we conceive it is a very great 
system of Reality. The ethereal vastnesses are 
far greater than the material. As the expanded 
heavens stretch far beyond our earth, so the 
universe of spiritual power and being stretches 
far beyond our earth-sphere. This we take to 
be in no sense fancy, but in every sense literal 
fact. They are not seers with true vision of 
Reality who see only a circumscribed lower ma- 
terial world. The immensities are high above 
and far out beyond our or any island-world. 
The real infinities and complexities and subtleties 
are the ethereal spheres of truth, beauty, ideals, 
spirit, God. These are the main and great 
Universe. To conceive of the World- Whole by 
giving little heed to these, is to conceive of an 
ocean by thinking of an island, little heeding the 
boundless ocean itself. And into such a vast 
and complicated and subtle Universe as this, 
man is set. A thousand thousand are his rela- 
tionships, commerces, communions. These again 
are not airy nothings, but facts more real than 



The Higher Envelops 73 

solid earths and flaming suns. Verily man is 
ensphered and ensphered by many a world. He 
is the centre and focus of an infinity of influences. 
Here and there their workings flash into con- 
sciousness and are wrought through knowledge; 
but this is exceptional. In the great main their 
workings are unconscious. When we surround 
the tree's roots with an earth and its trunk with 
an atmosphere and a sunlight and put it in con- 
nection with all nature, from the food-particles 
of the soil to the bonfires of the sun, and see ten 
million air-atoms and sunbeams and water-mole- 
cules perpetually playing upon it, building its 
very being, we have then a good though inade- 
quate illustration of the way man is infinitely 
related to an infinite World-All. 

For long we have been studying the way man 
is set into the Universe. We have seen him en- 
sphered by and held in the grasp of earth and 
atmosphere, sunlight and sun, physical universe 
and law, climate and topography, day and night, 
summer and winter; of family, community, na- 
tionality, race, and humanity ; of heredity, history, 
civilisation, evolution, and the Zeitgeist; of truth, 
beauty, ideals, spirit, God — greater sphere enfold- 
ing smaller, greater life smaller, out to the all- 
enfolding Absolute. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CORRESPONDINGLY WIDE-RANGING GAMUT OF 
man's POWERS 

ABOVE we saw man enveloped by many 
spheres, by all that is. Ten thousand cos- 
mic influences were playing incessantly upon 
him. Such was his Total Environment and such 
the endless variety of its influence upon him. 
The first result was the impression of the myriad- 
formed vital connection of the All with the individ- 
ual. The second result was the anticipation that 
the life of the individual himself would be found 
on examination to be many-sided and complex 
in order to be the locus of so many influences. 

We now turn from the manifold Total Environ- 
ment to the many-sided man himself. 

We have been prepared by our previous study 
to look for many doors and windows in the life 
of man. These we shall find. It shall be our 
task now to survey these many (human) doors 
and windows, receptivities and activities, parts 
and powers, of man's complex life. 

As we have turned from sphere to sphere, 
from the lowest material to the highest spiritual 

74 



The Wide-Ranging Human Gamut 75 

spheres, and have seen them one after another 
enfold the life of man and work in multitudinous 
vital ways upon and in him, it has always been 
the total man that our eyes naturally were fixed 
upon. And the total man was always physical as 
well as psychical man, body as well as mind. He 
was more than cognitive power, more than consci- 
ous being; he was a physico-psychic total. And 
this is man as we shall view him, and as he is. 
To think of man merely as a knower, is to leave 
out the vaster part of his being. To think of 
him as an intellect and as a will, is still to leave 
out by far the greater part of his nature. Or to 
think of him even as a cognitive, conative, and 
affective being, is yet to leave out the greater 
part of him. His unconscious and subconscious 
natures are left out. These too are part of the 
psyche. And his physical being as well is left 
out of the account. We therefore remind our- 
selves on the threshold of our analysis that man 
is the total man and that with him as an integer 
we here deal. Hence our present field is wider 
than that of the psychologist. It widens into 
that of the biologist. It widens also into that 
of the physiologist, and even broadens out into 
the field of the physicist. For inasmuch as man 
is mass, all that can be said of the stone's varied 
connections with the cosmos can be said of him. 
And inasmuch as man is an organism, all that 
can be said of the tree's cosmic connections can 



76 God and Man 

be said of him. Inasmuch also as he is a living 
animal, all that can be said of the animal's vital 
connections with the kingdoms of life and with 
the World- Whole applies to him. Inasmuch 
finally as he is distinctively a psyche, of course 
all that can be said of psychic connections with 
the Universe applies specially to him. And once 
more we pause to say that this is veritable man, 
the actual being that we see when we look at him 
set into the total Environment, the locus and 
focus of a myriad forces. 

With this governing word by way of necessary 
preface we hereupon turn to our analysis. 

Man has many physical doors and windows, 
receptivities and activities. As set bodily into 
nature, we saw natural powers without number 
playing incessantly upon him. The tree was no 
more complicated with nature than was the body 
of man. It had no more stomata than he. In 
truth man's every pore is a door of ingress and 
egress. His every cell is open on all sides to 
perpetual inflow and outflow. Every nerve is 
sensory or motor. How unnumbered are the 
windows for the sunbeams or the openings for 
the air and water molecules. And every atom of 
his body is open to the incoming influence of all 
the atoms of the Universe, and goes out of itself 
also in reciprocal influence everywhere. In fine, 
his body is a receiver with myriad receptivities. 



The Wide-Ranging Human Gamut 77 

an actor with myriad outgoing activities. It 
has many doors that swing both in and out. 

In all this we are attempting to see man as in a 
true and living picture, with the earth under his 
feet, the air and sunlight all about him, the sky 
above, and universal Being ensphering him round. 
We are fixing our eyes, however, upon him. We 
want to see all the doors and windows there are 
in his body, and then to see all the doors and 
windows there are in his mind; all the while 
remembering that he is set fixed into universal 
Being, and that all his doors and windows tell 
of the reciprocalness of his life with the World- 
Whole. 

Above, we have had suggested the countless 
physical doors and windows. The astonishing 
complexity and variety of the somatic life of 
man has appeared. 

But what has all this to do with the higher 
life? That is a psychic fact. But these doors 
and windows are physical facts. We reply that 
our domain is broader than psychology ; it is pro- 
perly Life. Man is more than a conscious being. 
He is all that is shut up within his integument. 
And we here deal with his true and total life. 
Hence all his physical receptivities and activi- 
ties are our present concern. It is therefore of 
present moment that gravitation all the while lays 
hold of every atom of his body, and that the body 
responds in kind. It is of present moment that 



78 God and Man 

nerves are afferent and efferent; that pores are 
mouths for ceaseless inhalation and exhalation, 
and that every cell is like a jelly-fish, taking in 
and giving out on all sides. It all shows that 
man has many doors of many kinds; that they 
swing both ways ; and that many are the constant 
incomings and outgoings. Yet this physical is 
part of the true and proper life of man — a fact 
to be realised and not forgotten. 

Here let us note again what our chapter is 
undertaking. It is attempting to view all the 
doors in the total life of man, both the physical 
and the mental doors. — We already have taken 
note of the former. They were legion. We now 
turn to the latter. 

If the body has so many connections with the 
All, has not the mind thereby indefinite connection 
also ? For the mind is joined to the body. Doubt- 
less. As there is probably no psychosis without 
a neurosis, so there may be no neurosis whatever 
without a corresponding psychosis. Indeed, every 
physical window may be an eye of the soul and 
all physical doors may be indirectly psychical 
too. It may be true, as Goethe says, that "mat- 
ter can never exist and act without spirit, " 
Certain at all events it is that through the myriad- 
formed connection of the body with the cosmos, 
the mind also is manifoldly connected therewith; 
for the life is one, not multiple. Because there- 



The Wide-Ranging Human Gamut 79 

fore of its connection with the body, the mind 
has many doors that swing in and out. We assume 
that it is unnecessary further to elaborate the 
point. 

Now it is realised that nearly all the foregoing 
processes are unconscious. The physical influ- 
ences of the cosmos work, in the great main, 
unconsciously. And the physiological processes 
go on, with few exceptions, in the same way. 
One has only to think of the processes of digestion 
and assimilation, of aeration and circulation, of 
catabolism and anabolism, of the million changing 
neuroses, of the formation and action of ' ' physical 
dispositions, " of the physiological side of the 
phenomena of habit, association, and memory, 
of sickness and health, and of physical fatigue 
and buoyancy, — phenomena most complicated 
in themselves, but rising into consciousness, if 
at all, only in their simple general result. All 
of these processes lie almost wholly beyond con- 
sciousness. Nevertheless they are a true part 
of life. And they are to be held steadfastly in 
consideration. For the life with which we here 
deal is more than the psychic ; it is the total life. 

At this point we turn from the unconscious 
to the subconscious areas of man's being. The 
catalogue of them is very long drawn-out. One 
studies with surprise the many subconscious 
workings. To begin, how little does even the 



8o God and Man 

ripe life realise the workings of its humanity 
as such. A revelation indeed are the subconscious 
workings of race, nationality, family ; of tempera- 
ment, sex, age; of heredity, instincts, aptitudes; 
of physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual en- 
vironment; of pleasure and pain, appetite and 
passion, hope and fear, love and hate, content 
and discontent; of selfishness, pride, ambition, 
interest, curiosity, and taste; of doubt and belief; 
of selective attention, association, retentiveness, 
and habit; of the working of the principles of 
harmony, simplicity, and rationality; of even 
sensation, perception, conception, thought, and 
reasoning ; of mental fatigue and rest ;of propensity, 
speech, bearing, tact, skill, execution, and even 
creative action ; of the workings of education and 
culture; of imagination, intuition, and apprecia- 
tion; finally of faith, conscience, adoration, and 
character; not forgetting the subconscious work- 
ings of the countless physical and physiological 
processes as they project themselves into the 
psychical areas. 

Here we are content to point out simply the many 
sides of man's complex nature, merely remarking 
for the present that these subconscious activities 
are withal a true part of life, and calling attention 
to the comparative magnitude of their areas. 

We turn finally to the conscious receptivities 
and activities of man's life. 



The Wide-Ranging Human Gamut 8i 

A state of waking human life or of consciousness 
is itself a complex state. That there is awareness 
is manifest. That there is something more is 
suggested by the fact that the state of conscious- 
ness is not in reality a state (static) but an activity. 
We are here coming in sight of conation. Indeed 
consciousness itself in the most interior way 
involves conation. For what is the process of 
becoming conscious, but the rise, or spring, or 
start into awareness. It is essential activity, 
conation. — From another point of view, what is 
the rise of consciousness but the grasping to- 
gether of a little field as one. However slight 
the consciousness, it is, as far as it is consciousness, 
the grasping together of diversity into unity. 
It is a synthesis; it is an activity of conation. 
This is the internal and essential structure, as we 
take it, of every activity of consciousness. Though 
awareness is the prominent aspect, conation is 
the deeper aspect. 

But are these all? Is there not another ulti- 
mate? Although I can not see that affection is 
involved in all consciousness in the same necessary 
way as conation, and although many of the at- 
tempts to show this are to me inconclusive, it is 
nevertheless present in actual life. It is an ever- 
present fact of psychic experience. Indeed from 
the side of fact I believe it can be shown that 
affection (feeling) is the earliest form of awareness. 
Further that essential affection (not conscious) 



82 God and Man 

even precedes all awareness. Therefore as a 
fact the presence of affection as an ultimate con- 
stituent of all psychic life is unquestioned. 

At this point it will help us to look again at 
what we are undertaking in our chapter. We 
are endeavouring to view with care the varied 
receptivities and activities of the total life of 
man. Already we have noted the many uncon- 
scious and the many subconscious processes. 
We are now surveying the conscious processes of 
his complex life. Hitherto we have come in 
sight of awareness, conation, and affection. We 
undertake further to note the remaining conscious 
receptivities and activities. 

As we leave the ultimate aspects there is no 
longer question as to fact. That sensation, as- 
sociation, and the rest are real psychic processes 
need not be said. Beyond indicating the existence 
of sensation and association, we are concerned 
merely with noting the wide extent of their area 
in the total field of psychic life. The Sensation- 
Association School of psychologists, if nothing 
else, have made it impossible to disregard their 
magnitude and importance. Endless is the va- 
riety of sensation, numberless are the threads of 
association. Besides sensation and association 
other conscious powers are ideation and perception. 

Conation, affection, and awareness; sensation, 
association, ideation, perception — these are the 
conscious processes thus far considered. 



The Wide-Ranging Human Gamut 83 

We next think of the manifoldness of memory 
and all the variety of imagination. Without the 
former, past experience would be annihilated for 
consciousness, and present experience utterly 
transformed. Without the latter, conscious life 
would be hopelessly narrowed and shut up within 
the shrunken and contracted self. A deeper- 
going psychology is all too late magnifying the 
just domain of imagination. 

We pass on to another group of conscious pro- 
cesses — conception, thinking, judging, knowing, 
reasoning. These in their order are like five 
cylinders of a telescope, each succeeding larger 
(more complex) term including all the preceding. 
Obviously they are not severally independent. 

We come at last to the final group of conscious 
powers and capacities, esthetic constrtiction and 
appreciation, intuition and faith, inspiration and 
revelation. .Esthetic functioning is discoverable 
in every field of knowledge. Intuition (imme- 
diate apprehension) and faith permeate all con- 
scious human life. Inspiration and revelation 
also pervade, as we hold, all consciousness. — In 
the final outcome these latter will stand forth 
with central prominence. 

We now have surveyed the conscious psychic 
powers. These are what we have found : conation, 
affection, and awareness; sensation, association, 
ideation, and perception; memory and imagina- 
tion; conception, thinking, judgment, knowledge. 



84 God and Man 

and reasoning; aesthetic construction and ap- 
preciation, intuition and faith, inspiration and 
revelation. 

Another fact should be noted with special care, 
because, in its essential form, it runs through the 
entire work. If each of the above processes be 
critically studied, it will be found to contain two 
elements: the activity of the conscious centre, 
and the activity of the Other. By the Other 
is meant that outside of the conscious centre. 
The activity of the Other, however, takes place in 
and through the conscious centre. So that every 
conscious process is a receptivity as well as an ac- 
tivity — ^though every receptivity is also an ac- 
tivity, as every activity is likewise a receptivity. 
Consequently every conscious psychic process, as 
indeed every psychic process, is a union of two 
activities. The Other acts in and through the 
conscious centre; the conscious centre receives 
the activity and reacts in turn upon it. In this, 
psychic action is like that of every living centre, 
probably of every living thing. Throughout the 
realm of life — if not farther — one law holds: every 
centre of activity is at the same time a centre of 
receptivity, the focus of other active powers. 
This fact is of cardinal importance. 

Herewith we close our analysis and survey of 
the physical and the psychic (unconscious, sub- 
conscious, and conscious) receptivities and ac- 
tivities of man's life. 



CHAPTER V 

THE WORLD-ALL AT WORK I OR THE PRIORITY, 
PARENTHOOD, AND GREATER WORKING OF GOD 

UP to this point, we have seen all that is, the 
infinite divine Environment ensphering and 
ensphering man and the whole wide-ranging 
gamut of powers that he is. Man does not hold 
the world, the world holds him. We do not 
envelop the heavens, the heavens ensphere us. 
Even Leviathan does not contain the ocean, the 
ocean contains him and he plays therein. The 
tree does not environ nature, nature environs 
and holds the tree. Before the tree existed, 
nature was; before the whale, was the ocean; 
before man, earth and the divine Heavens. Man 
does not precede his worlds, his worlds precede 
him. 

The new-born babe is born into a home and a 
Universe already prepared for it. From the 
first, it opens its lungs to an atmosphere already 
awaiting it, and its eyes upon a world of waiting 
light. From the first, its ears are greeted by the 
love-notes of parents, while the voices of children 
and men and all the sounds of environing nature 

85 



86 God and Man 

seek to awake its slumbering faculty. The up- 
holding earth is already there as another mother- 
bosom of support. The far-off anticipating sun 
has hasted with the speed of light to warm the 
welcoming earth, and already, with hands softer 
and touch gentler than mother's, holds the babe 
in its strong embrace. The anticipating stars 
looked down as did the stars on Bethlehem. 
And the foreknowing Heavens, from the begin- 
ning, arched above and encircled all with large 
pre-natal love. The child is born indeed into a 
Universe already prepared. The home is there 
to harbour it; humanity to help it; language 
to teach it; tradition to lead it; law to govern 
it; the school to educate it; the Church to con- 
secrate and niirture it; play and work there to 
develop it ; truth to enlighten it ; ideals to exalt 
and idealise it; art and beauty to symmetrise 
and refine it; the Son of God there to save and 
shepherd it; and the divine Spirit to hallow, 
spiritualise and fulfil it. Everything precedes 
it, — from the house already built to the heavens 
already spread out; from the parent already 
waiting to the great God eternally first. The 
child is born into a prepared Universe. If a man 
stepped down from a star, he would not find the 
earth more ready for his footstep, than the babe 
finds all things made ready for its coming. Our 
infinite total Environment is in readiness against 
the day of our birth. 



The Priority of God 87 

We little note this. It is the mark of childhood 
that it notes nothing deeply. And we linger too 
much in childhood still. We are mostly unaware 
and disregardful both of the fact, and of the limit- 
less significance of the fact. Who of us have 
seriously taken note of these pre-existing and 
awaiting worlds? We enter into possession, for 
the most part, as hereditary kings enter into 
dominion of their realms, or as birds enter upon 
the wide kingdom of the air. If we came into 
existence, unparented by a father and mother, un- 
brooded by a humanity, unmothered by an earth, 
unparented by nature, unclaimed by a cosmos, 
and unfathered by a God, because these — one 
and all — as yet were not, and if we awoke with 
adult consciousness to the fact, we should realise 
that we were more destitute indeed than Milton's 
fallen Archangel awaking on the burning marl; 
for he at least awoke in hell and still could say, 
"All is not lost." If we awoke to the fact — 
but the truth is that we should never awake to 
that or any other fact, neither to the non-existence 
of them nor to the desolate being of ourselves. 
Or if we awoke perchance in the remote and 
dateless past, the first concreted thing afloat in 
the primal fire-mist, in the beginning, before the 
date of ordered systems, before the dawn of the 
pleasant light, before the birth of the segregated 
earth, before the being of the ambient air, before 
even the blue sky rose and arched wide above, — 



88 God and Man 

in the beginning, when all was yet without form 
and void, if, afloat in the diffused fire-mist, we 
awoke, we should welcome forsooth even some 
"pillared firmament of rottenness," and should 
be grateful to have even "stubble" to build an 
earth's base upon. We should realise then our 
desolateness. Then we should know what it 
meant to forerun the ordered Universe instead 
of following it. We should be like a seed without 
a soil, like a bird without an atmosphere, a star 
without a course, or a king without a kingdom. 
"The man without a country" was passing rich 
compared with the creature of our supposition, 
the man without a Universe. We do not realise 
the backgrounds against which life is actually 
set. We little heed how we are framed into and 
set against the backgrounds of humanity, world, 
sun, Universe, God. These all were prior to us, 
as they are prior to the unformed child, and when 
we came, we were born into all this infinite prior 
Evironment. 

We do well to consider this supremely. Here 
we ponder matters of absolute greatness. There 
are but two things in reality, Man and his Envi- 
ronment. The question of Background is the 
illimitable question. Into what is human life 
framed and set? Does it ground in God? Does 
the gamut of man's being ground in kindred 
being? body in Nature? heart in Heart ? mind 
in Mind ? spirit in Spirit ? The priority of Nature 



The Priority of God 89 

and of God is the illimitable fact for man. We 
must abandon the task of thought, and the pre- 
rogative of rational life, or we must realise supreme 
conditions in their absolute greatness. We must 
not take worlds and solar systems and universes 
as matters of course. We must realise that all 
depends on man having parents to bring him to 
the birth, and air for his lungs, and food for his 
hunger, and brooding care for his helplessness, 
and voices for his ear, and language for his 
tongue, and love for his heart, and authority for 
his will, and vast space for his eye to look out 
into, with objects to behold and light to see by, 
and a World for a stage and humanity to play 
with, the Universe for a school-room and every- 
thing for a teacher, — duty for his conscience, work 
for his hand, truth for his mind, and beauty for 
his aesthetic being, the sky and mystery for his 
imagination and wonder, the Kingdom of Grace 
for his growing character, and God for his ever 
worshipful soul. All depends on life's Back- 
grounds. If in humanity and in nature and in the 
infinite God we live and move and have our being, 
then all things become possible. Life universally 
parented is life indeed. Life utterly orphaned 
is the night of death. Gothe's "sad stranger 
upon a dark earth" was a fortunate wight in 
comparison. If the starry heavens filled Kant's 
soul with wonder and awe the more he gazed into 
that excellent glory, with what consternation 



go God and Man 

of amazement would he have looked, if those 
same heavens before his very eyes had been rolled 
together as a scroll, and the earth from under his 
feet had dissolved into the ancient mist, and all 
things had suffered final shock, departing to 
"leave not a rack behind"! Life without the 
infinite Background is nought. It needs no more 
than a nest of little birds, stretching up open 
mouths, expecting food has come, while far away 
the mother-bird, helpless upon the ground, is 
trailing a broken wing ; no more than those hungry 
little birds and that never-to-return mother with 
the broken wing, is required to touch our natures 
into melting tenderness. Is there a more delight- 
some and perfect sight in all the world than a Ma- 
donna and her child ? Is there a more melancholy 
and moving spectacle anywhere than a living babe 
upon the bosom of its mother still and cold in death ? 
Life without its Backgrounds is nothing worth. 

The priority of humanity and of nature and of 
God is the all-conditioning fact for man. If we 
are to take a true account of life at all, if we are 
to quit ourselves like men and not to abandon 
the prerogative and hilltop of human conscious- 
ness, we must see life as it really is. We must 
see man as set against all his Backgrounds, which 
preceded him, which already were when as yet 
he was not. In the beginning, we must see God 
and we must see Him creating the heavens and 
the earth and all the host of them, and elaborating 



The Priority of God 91 

them into form, and furnishing and garnishing 
them as an abode fit for sons; and finally, in His 
own image, creating man, — ^an ancestry already of 
long line, before our particular natal day. Against 
all these Backgrounds we are set. Into all these 
things we are born. And God saw^ everything 
that He had made, and behold it was very good. 
To be born into these parenting environments, the 
favoured child of all worlds, this it is to be well 
born, this it is that is good. Surely not alone in 
the Father's House of the future, but also in the 
Father's world of all the past, the Lord of Life 
goeth before man to prepare a place for him. 

Here is what must be greatly considered. Vast 
primordial fact gives the primal law to life. We 
shall not take the first step in the true under- 
standing of the higher or of any life, until we see 
life's great Backgrounds. As well try to under- 
stand a navigator without his ocean or an astrono- 
mer without his heavens. And still there would 
seem to be no great thing that is less considered. 
The tree feeding on the sunbeams or drinking 
in the falling dew, or the bird calmly floating in 
the buoying air, or the babe peacefully sleeping on 
its mother's bosom, are but little more unmindful 
than are most men of the conditioning and indis- 
pensable elements of life. Who thinks of the 
earth upon which he walks, or of the atmosphere 
which he momently breathes, or of the light from 
above by which he sees his way? It is amazing 



92 God and Man 

how unaware we are of the very worlds in which 
we Hve and of the very elements that make our 
lives possible. If we could ascend in some great 
balloon and look down upon the earth and see 
continents and oceans and all the kingdoms of 
the world spread out in endless panorama, and 
if while we gazed in rapt wonder, the continents 
suddenly dropped and sank, and the wild ocean 
floods rushed in, a vast tide and tumult of gurg- 
ling waters, overwhelming all beneath the waves a 
league of fathoms deep ; if, suddenly, gone were the 
vasty seas, gone were the broad sunny lands and 
the little islands too, gone the proud cities and 
the busy lives of men, gone the old homestead 
and the children and the smiling play-ground and 
the field of life's enterprise, all forever gone, — 
if one looked down and saw the old home of man 
vanish thus, one would realise what it means to 
have a world to live in. But perhaps it is vain 
to attempt fully to realise what so immeasurably 
passes our comprehension. Nevertheless all this 
vast Fact lives and works all the time, infinitely, 
like God whether we realise it or not, and we are 
carried upon its bosom every minute parented 
endlessly by its vast mother-life. 

The priority of nature and of humanity and 
of God, of all man's ensphering worlds, wherein 
he comes to live and move and have his being, 
even this have we been toiling to appreciate. 
To every baby born the waiting worlds would 



The Parenthood of God 93 

speak and say: Your mother and we were all 
here before you came, little babe ; we were waiting 
for you. And the full-grown man that in later 
years would set in order the facts of life, and see 
the seed spring from its soil and all things in their 
actuality, will consider well what the waiting 
worlds have to say to the babe. Its little ward- 
robe, with the last deft stitch already taken 
weeks before, and all so daintily folded and laid 
away in the drawer, in boundless expectation, 
is but a sweet symbol of forerunning Nature 
in all her priority and endless preparation. 

Not only did this infinite Environment precede 
man, but more, it parented him. The branch 
should know, not alone its connection with the 
tree into which it is set, but also the close intimacy 
of that connection. It should know itself as a 
bud running back into and springing out of the 
parenting life of the tree. Likewise, man must 
know, not only his setting into the great Environ- 
ment, but also the closeness of his vital connection 
therewith. He must see his life as a bud running 
back into and springing out of the parenting life 
of the All. We shall never begin nor hope to 
know what our human life really is here in this 
world, until, deliberately and long, we look into 
its actual genesis. We must burst asunder the 
walls of our egoistic prison-house; we must fly 
beyond the borders of juvenile and provincial 



94 God and Man 

consciousness. With the understanding of ma- 
turity, we must follow life back into Nature's 
womb. We must see our childhood in relation 
to its great Correlate, Parenthood, and our crea- 
ture-life in relation to its universal Creator, The 
mighty fact that the World-All mothered us, 
mothers us still, and will mother us forever; the 
mighty fact of the parenting, eternally brooding 
Life of God, must be appreciated by us in its 
greatness, the first postulate of the human under- 
standing of life. Man may indeed tell the tale 
of his life for himself if he likes. But it will 
remain a minor account. Only the mother who 
bore him and this brooding Universe withal are 
adequate to relate aright the great history. 
Human life is parented, endlessly parented. Every 
life-sphere that folds it round mothers it. The 
unborn child held within and enfolded by the 
larger, richer parent-life, is in the original locus 
and primal condition of us all. A little life, 
budding from the parent stock, held within and 
fed out of the larger mother-life, is the first 
state and stage of this our earthly pilgrimage. 
And this, life's first condition, is essentially life's 
subsequent and eternal condition. The forms 
change. The encircling life-spheres become finer, 
subtler, more spiritual, but the inner reality 
abides eternal and changes not. A smaller life 
held within and enfolded by a larger, richer 
Life, that mothered it at the beginning, that 



The Parenthood of God 95 

mothers it still, and that will mother it evermore, 
— ^this, I take it, is the primal and fundamental 
and everlasting fact about our human life. No 
life-fact is comparable to this. No philosophy 
of life approaches this in truth and richness. 
Here we look upon life's last Background. And 
the foreground and the Background are one; 
they tell the same story: our smaller human life 
forever enfolded by and fed out of the infinite 
parenting Life of God, — here is the transcendent 
fact and philosophy of life, that makes all other 
accounts, in reality, barren and unsatisfying. 

Our life-spheres have mothered us without end. 
In the beginning we were born, each of us. We 
did not bear ourselves. Even Caesar, who would 
fain play the god, could not say, "On such a day, 
in such a year, I, C^sar, did myself bear." The 
great Augustus, like every other mother's son, 
had to say, "On such a day I was born, and my 
mother bare me. " And after the little Augustus 
and every other little beginner of us had been 
mothered, according to the antique way, into 
being and into birth, the mothering process even 
then had but fairly begun. The body had been 
born but the mind was not yet born, and the 
heart was still unborn, and the spirit too was far 
from birth. The child is not all born even on 
its birthday. Mind, heart, and spirit must be 
mothered still to the birth. How they all must 
be brooded! As the little body was enveloped 



g6 God and Man 

and mothered, so the Httle mind must be 
brooded and hovered over and parented into 
life. Mind must mother mind as body mothered 
body. What touchings and caressings of intel- 
ligence; what beamings of parent faces; what 
down-lookings into little eyes; what croonings; 
what baby-words of mother-speech in ceaseless 
variation; what perpetual down-shinings of the 
light of parent-mind into the little windows of 
dawning mind, before the first answering rays 
of inner light are kindled and shine out in glad- 
dening response! This is the way mind is 
mothered into being and into birth. With power 
subtler than the touch of sunbeams, all-brooding 
mind penetrated to the seats of slumbering life, 
and gently awakened each of us into responsive 
mental life. Then the mind had its birthday. 
And Nature, likewise, was carrying on her 
mothering still. For with light and sound at once 
she approached the gates of sense, and passing 
quickly the outer portals, softly knocked at the 
inner gates, seeking to awake the sleeper. For, 
though with eyes wide-open, at first we see not- 
and with open ears at first we hear not. Thus 
both the worlds of nature and of mind carry on 
and on the mothering process and travail still 
to bring mentality to birth. 

The little heart must be brooded too; for the 
affections are not yet born. A thousand smiles 
must hover over that little life. A thousand times 



The Parenthood of God 97 

mother-eyes must look love into baby-eyes. 
Love-notes must vibrate in its ears from morn till 
night. Its life must be warmed through and 
through at its mother's heart. The whole parental 
life of love must surround it perpetually like an 
atmosphere and bathe it like a sunlight. Then 
the first answering smile, at length, will ripple 
up from the depths and play in sweet response 
upon the face. Infantile affections are being 
awakened; but long brooding will be needed yet 
before those opening buds of promise will be un- 
folded into the fair flowers of perfected affections. 
And the spirit must be mothered also. It is 
first the natural then the spiritual. In the begin- 
ning the soul is hid away deep in the inner recesses 
of possibility, as the roses are hid away in the 
heart of the little rosebush. The moral and 
spiritual nature is not yet born. The home must 
fold the little life about with reverence and wor- 
ship as with an atmosphere. Its little being must 
dv/ell within mystery and awe and heaven-reach- 
ing imagination as in a spiritual climate. The 
words and solemn notes of prayer must echo 
long in the inner chamber. The sacred music 
of the higher life must reverberate through its 
being. Divine seeds of truth must fall upon the 
inner soil. Parental souls radiant with divine life 
must ray their light into the inner room. The 
sacred fires upon the altar of the soul must com- 
municate their flame to the unkindled spirit. 



qS God and Man 

In a word, the entire religious life of the home 
must brood the potential soul and quicken it into 
conscious life and power. This is the way a soul 
is born. 

We were not all here on the day of our arrival. 
Life is not a finished thing. It is a continuous 
creation. A child on the day it is born is a little 
animated bod}^, with splendid possibility and 
program of something more. Some parts of the 
body even are as yet but the outline sketch of 
what they are to be. The brain particularly is 
little more than the program of its future self. 
Fathers and mothers must be parents to more 
than their children's bodies. They must be in- 
tellectual, they must be affectional, they must be 
spiritual fathers and mothers to their children. 
As they parented the child's body into the physi- 
cal world, they must parent the child's heart into 
the finer world of affection, and its mind into the 
subtler world of intellection, and its soul into the 
higher world of spirit. This is no fancy. This 
is no theory. It is fact as literal as physical birth 
itself. We are the poor dupes and slaves of our 
senses. Because we do not hold the scales to 
weigh the baby, we do not realise the moment- 
ous and sacred fact of the birth and mothering 
of Mind, Heart, and Spirit. 

To appreciate how this our human life is paren- 
ted, we ought somehow to see ourselves over again 
from the beginning as in moving pictures of 



The Parenthood of God 99 

growing life. If one by one ten thousand pictures 
passed before our eyes revealing the marvellous 
stages of our growth, and if the ever-present 
mother formed the background of -each, every- 
where brooding and ministering, as truly as when, 
a babe in arms, we nursed in sweet content, and 
if as we looked at each scene, we thought, "that 
art thou," we should realise how infinitely this 
our human life is parented. To every devoted, 
thoughtful mother it all must come home in 
flashes of revelation. The truth about one's own 
life and its connection with the great world of 
fostering life must shine out clear as the morning. 

But we do not look long enough at that revela- 
tion; we do not see deeply enough into that 
morning of life. For the last revelation is like the 
first. And the noon of life is like the morning; 
and the evening is not different. What is begun 
in the dawn is continued in the day. Life was 
mothered before and after birth. It is mothered 
still. It will be forever. As every new life-ring 
on the possibly five-thousand-year-old sequoia, 
most venerable of earth's living forms, is parented 
now, as ever, by prior life and mothering nature, 
so every new ring of growth that is added to our 
hiiman life-tree is likewise parented. Each fresh 
flower that blooms on the rosebush is mothered ; 
every new grace that flowers on the most ven- 
erable life, as truly. 

Science on her own account, with new emphasis, 



loo God and Man 

records the same history. She reports no lite- 
form that has not been parented by prior life 
and the mothering environment. Is there a 
chick ; there has been a hen. Is there a tadpole ; 
there has been a frog. Is there an acorn ; there 
has been an oak. Is there a grassblade ; there has 
been another. Is there a cell; there has been a 
parent cell. Wherever there is a web-foot, there 
has been water. Wherever there is a wing, there 
has been air. The atmosphere called forth the 
breathing lung ; the lung did not give rise to the 
atmosphere. The light called forth the seeing 
eye; the eye did not bring forth the shining 
light. Take the light away, the eye in time 
becomes a vestige. This is the story of the sea; 
this is the story of the land ; the report of the rocks ; 
the tale of the whispering air. A parenting life, 
a mothering environment everywhere, from top 
to bottom, from bottom to top, throughout all 
the kingdoms of ascending life. 

The new miracle of the springtime and the 
pageant of the summer repeat each marvellous 
year the ancient chronicle of Life, What could 
be more suggestive for our thought than the 
coming of the spring? and the' manner of its 
coming? The multitudinous forms of vegetal 
life did not first awake and shout to the laggard 
sun to arouse him to his shining. On the contrary, 
the unwearied sun from day to day higher climbed 
in the patient heavens, while below all the laggard 



The Parenthood of God loi 

life of earth slumbered still in the cold and frozen 
lap of winter. The spring did not bring the vernal 
sun; the vernal sun brought the spring. Month 
after month that patient traveller journeyed 
toward this northland, carrying the new miracle 
of spring within his fiery being. Assaulting sun- 
beams had to be rolled in endless billows against 
this resisting continent. Bars and barriers of 
ice and snow had first to be broken down and 
melted into congenial confederates. The cold 
bosom of the earth had to be warmed into hos- 
pitality. The chill and torpid heart of things 
had to be thawed out and set throbbing with new 
life. And when after long months of travail, 
at length the myriad germs and buds and forms 
of sleeping life had been warmed and awaked, 
then behold the miracle of the springtime! a 
miracle as fresh and marvellous and momentous 
as was the first glorious bridal of heaven and 
earth. This is the way the multitudinous life 
of every spring and summer is mothered into 
being and into growth. — Is it not all a majestic 
symbol of God? The all-brooding, warming, 
life-giving Heavens: the torpid, reluctant, yield- 
ing, awaking, developing earth. The all-giving 
Parent: the all-receiving child. It is the story 
of our human life. 

The brooding life of Christ makes this story 
uniquely vivid and concrete. Like a new morn- 
ing He rose upon His disciples' lives and poured 



I02 God and Man 

a world of light around them. The sunlight of 
His truth shone round about them like a heavenly- 
radiance. This "Light of the world" was a new 
day of God for man. He was rolled into its dawn, 
and this new day of God's truth was all glorious 
about him. He dwelt in the "light of life." 
This is the way Christ thought of Himself in 
relation to man. This is the way God, the Father, 
thought of Him. From the time when, at the 
beginning, the "glory of the Lord shone round 
about" the startled shepherds, to the time when 
at the end on the Cross, the sun's light was with- 
drawn and darkness, like a funeral pall, was 
thrown over the earth, on to when a "light from 
heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shone 
round about" the persecuting Saul, to the final 
picture of the Heavenly City, where the "lamp 
thereof is the Lamb," Christ is revealed as the 
Light of God to the lives of men. "The people 
that walked in darkness have seen a great light ' ' ; 
thus wrote the forward-looking Prophet. * ' Until 
the day dawn and the day-star arise in your 
hearts"; thus wrote the backward-looking Apos- 
tle, who was " with Him in the holy mount, " and 
an "eyewitness of His majesty, " when "His face 
did shine as the sun, and His garments became 
white as the light. " 

This light of divine truth shone and shone 
from His radiant personality into the dull lives 
about Him. Truth poured from His lips into 



The Parenthood of God 103 

their hearing ears. It streamed from His eyes 
into their opening eyes. It beamed from His 
countenance into their kindling faces. It uttered 
itself in His mighty deeds to their wondering 
minds. It spoke from the repose and majesty 
and simplicity of His bearing to their intuitive 
being. It glowed from the inner glory of His 
character into their deepest nature. His mind 
brooded theirs and mothered them into an intel- 
lectual new-birth. His large life hovered over 
them like a sky and enfolded them like a sun-lit 
atmosphere. Within His large radiance they 
dwelt as in a temple filled with God's glory. 
This is the way He nourished and cherished them 
like a parent. And this is the way, at last, spring 
and exuberant summer succeeded to the torpid 
winter of their intellectual life. 

The account of the mind is the essential story 
as well of the awaking heart and of the nascent 
soul. Jesus folded the great world of His influence 
around the disciples ' lives, until their total natures 
began to stir and awake into newness of life. 
He kept them by His side day after day, week 
after week, month after month, into the years, 
Sabbaths and weekdays, day and night. They 
ate at the same board with Him, and slept with 
Him in the same house. They drank at the same 
wells, visited the same cities, journeyed across 
the same fields and along the same roads, and 
sailed in the same boat on blue Galilee. He 



I04 God and Man 

drew them closer and closer to Himself, into the 
inmost circles, where friend meeteth with friend. 
He flowed round their lives with the tides of 
His love as the ocean flows round an island. 
His sympathy breathed upon them as gently as 
the soft breath from the warm southland. He won 
them to lean back upon His divine bosom, and 
lay their lives, childlike, against His great life. He 
gave His sacred face to their lips to touch. He 
broke the loaves beside the sea and revealed 
Himself as the bread of Heaven that had come 
down from God to give life unto the world. 
They ate of that heavenly bread and began to 
live in the strength of the eternal years. He called 
all that thirsted unto the fountain of His life. 
They drank, and the water became in them a 
living spring, welling up from the deeps of God's 
exhaustless Being, springing and overflowing 
forever with pure water of life. He revealed to 
them His own ideals, the "heavenly vision." 
He carried them up to the hilltops and let them 
look out over the vast purposes of God. He led 
them forth into the exceeding broad and happy 
fields of redeemed activity. He chastened them 
like a father. He looked into their eyes, back into 
their souls, with His calm holy eyes, and their beings 
were stirred to the bottom with deep repentance. 
And He played the flame of His glowing soul against 
the candles of their spirits to cause them to burn 
with holy fire, like a "candle of the Lord. " 



The Parenthood of God 105 

The numberless contacts of the infinitely 
varied and subtle relationships of His great life 
to theirs are good to ponder. They open our 
crass and stupid eyes to the finer kingdoms of 
Reality. They enable us to become deliberately 
aware of other rains and falling dews, of other 
atmospheres and sunlights, of other gravitations 
and affinities. We verily realise that there are 
other motions indeed than those of masses, 
other waves than ocean billows, other winds 
than atmospheric, and other vibrations than 
ether. We awake to appreciate the vast reaches 
and ranges of spiritual Reality. We see those 
high regions, and we begin to know their subtle 
environments, their spiritual climates, their divine 
electricities, their heavenly laws, their still small 
voices. And when we behold the Son of God 
coming to earth, bringing with Him that infinite 
Kingdom of Heaven, and when we consider His 
boundless Personality, ranging from humanity to 
Divinity, and when we see Him throwing all 
those untold infiuences about the lives of His 
disciples, then we realise how wonderfully they 
were parented and brooded and unfolded to 
higher form. 

His influence penetrated like leaven through 
the dough of their lives. His word fell like a 
mustard seed into the ground of their heart. 
His Spirit, like the vital breath of God, entered, 
they knew not how, into the spirit and background 



io6 God and Man 

of their being, and changed the primal sources 
and springs of all their living. Lo! life was 
different. A new soul had passed into everything. 
They had the mind of Christ. A new radiance 
fell across all the fields of life. The horizons 
lifted. Great visions swept out into far vistas. 
It was good to look. Their feelings had deepened ; 
their affections grown diviner and fuller; their 
interests, loftier; their ambitions, greater and 
holier. And humankind had changed. They 
were seen through a white transfiguring light; 
they were the fair children of God. And a new 
face was upon the fields of earth. They were 
the rich garment of a present God. And the 
heavens were new. They were the new home. 
A before unseen glory shone through their majes- 
tic frame. And God too was different. He was 
revealed in the nearness and warmth of His 
Fatherhood; in the inner beauty and sweetness 
and love of His Being. All things were changed. 
A new glory had passed over the face of every- 
thing. For the first time they were seen in their 
essential truth. 

Thus did Christ enfold the lives of His disciples. 
Thus did He throw His large life, too great to 
limit theirs, about them. He took them up indeed 
into its large rooms. They abode in Him. They 
were at home as in the Father's house. They 
became as "little children" over against Him, 
They became "fools that they might become 



The Parenthood of God 107 

wise, " Healing virtue went out from Him into 
their frames. They confessed their sins that 
He might baptise them with the Holy Spirit. 
They brought their sick souls and minds to Him 
and He breathed into them holiness and health. 
They became aware of their emptiness and He 
filled them with His abounding life. They 
yielded to Him, and He took their wills up into 
His great will and fulfilled them, their lives up into 
His all-enriching, all-fulfilling life. They lived; 
yet not they, but Christ lived in them. He be- 
came the heart of their heart and the mind of 
their mind and the spirit of their spirit. They 
lived and moved and had their being in Him. 
He was the vine, they were the branches. He 
poured His life-saps into them. They drew all 
their growth and foliage and bloom and fruit 
from Him. In a sense as real and profound as 
life, they abode in Him, while He was with them. 
And after His physical form had been taken 
away, in every essential and great sense, they 
abode in Him still. "Abide in me, and I in 
you." "Lo, I am with you alway. " "If a 
man love me he will keep my word ; and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, and 
make our abode with him. " 

And so it was the Lord Christ, the Prince of 
Life, became the new Promised Land in which 
His disciples dwelt, the new Temple of God 
wherein they abode, and from which they went 



io8 God and Man 

no more out forever. And so it was He folded 
His limitless Life in myriad ways about them and 
parented and brooded and unfolded their lives 
into sons and daughters of God. 

In all this it is clear that Christ's work is the 
great factor. And here we arrive at the third 
large aspect of our chapter — the greater working 
of God. The priority of God, or of the divine 
World-All, grew for us into the vast background 
against which human life is set. The parent- 
hood of God, or of the divine World- All, revealed 
the true, intimate, and infinitely rich relationship 
of the All to the individual. And now the greater 
working of God, or of the divine World- All, 
should be realised. 

No one can see what we have seen within the 
circles of Christ's influence, without feeling the 
surpassing greatness of His working. What 
those disciples did for themselves was, indeed, 
something. But what He did for them was 
vastly more. It may have seemed to Peter 
when he went out and wept bitterly, that the 
struggle was all a painful, desperate, personal 
one. It may have seemed that he had to work 
out his salvation alone in tragedy and tears. 
Nevertheless, back of all, he must have felt that 
the great Protagonist was not absent from the 
conflict. And all along, however evident the 
personal side of life's struggle, back of ever3^thing 



The Greater Working of God 109 

he must have realised the greater working of 
Christ. Subtle instincts and deep intuitions 
must have told him of that omnipresent Power. 
It is suggestive of the range and mystery of life 
that we may be quite absorbed, apparently, in 
the individual and personal struggle, while at 
the same time, underlying all, is the subtle con- 
sciousness of other Presences and Powers. As 
we look on and see Jesus at work upon Peter, 
it seems to us more like the supreme Artist bring- 
ing forth the statue out of the marble, than like 
Peter alone hewing and shaping himself into 
form. Even when he went forth and wept, it 
was the look of Jesus into his soul that sent him 
forth, and that was the power of that deep repent- 
ance. And, at the beginning, if Jesus saw for 
Peter rock character underneath, in the hidden 
depths of possibility, it was yet He, more than 
all else, who would have to upheave that granitic 
substrate and lift it up into Alpine strength and 
solidity. The man he was to be rose like a rock 
out of the fickle sea of impulse, but Jesus was the 
power of his rising. When he left all and followed 
Jesus, he was in the grasp of a new power stronger 
than the gravitations of earth. He walked the 
waves only as long as his eyes were fastened on 
Jesus. It was the outstretched hand, that lifted 
his sinking form into safety again. Life's peril- 
ous sea could not be trodden by Peter's merely 
human feet. When he gazed into the Holy 



no God and Man 

of Holies of Jesus' life and saw the glory of 
Divinity there, it was Jesus Himself who opened 
the eyes of his soul, as the rising sun opens the 
lilies. The power that exalted was the power 
also that abased him. "Get thee behind me, 
Satan," was the rigour of divine rebuke. When 
he fell at Jesus' feet it was the humbling power 
of holiness. When he climbed the Mount of 
Transfiguration and beheld the vision that never 
died out of his soul, Jesus was both the vision 
and the after-power of his life's long transfigura- 
tion. Thus Jesus wrought in truth, like unto a 
Creator upon a new creation. The burden of 
the work was his. 

If we could only see Jesus truly, as the painters 
have tried to see Him, His great spiritual person- 
ality the centre of every picture and group, clothed 
in calm majesty, radiant with the inner glory 
of the soul, pouring light about Him and into 
the disciples' faces, creating a new atmosphere 
of grace around them, enfolding their lives with 
His love as with the warmth of spring, speaking 
words of eternal life that penetrated to the seats 
of being, quickening their dead affections, awak- 
ing the mysterious depths of their natures, shed- 
ding His spirit, like holy fire, through all the 
fram.e of being, driving the clouds from their 
minds and revealing the clear skies of divine 
truth, deepening the springs and sources of the 
heart until they opened down into the exhaust- 



The Greater Working of God 1 1 1 

less Life of God, taking their little wills and setting 
them into the great fulfilling divine Will, develop- 
ing and purifying their souls until they could 
see God and consciously live within His enfolding 
Life, exalting and refining their powers into 
appreciation of the glory of God and the beauty 
of holiness; and withal enlarging and enriching 
their total lives until they seemed to abound in 
all riches and to open out everywhere into infinite 
worths, — ^if indeed we could see Christ thus in 
the midst of His disciples, we should marvel at 
the magnitude of His working. 

He was the great worker in and through the 
whole magnificent process. Of this we become 
the more profoundly conscious the more clearly 
we see His great spiritual personality, and realise 
the height and depth of His influence upon those 
disciples. And of this Jesus also was aware. 
He knew that their regeneration and sanctification 
and transfiguration depended primarily upon 
Himself. This He assumed and manifested every- 
where and throughout. This He implied in the 
significant symbol of the Vine and the Branches. 
And this He calmly declared to the Father, in 
one of the most solemn hours of His life, when in 
His great prayer. He said: While I was with 
them, I kept them in Thy name which Thou hast 
given me; and I guarded them, and not one of 
them perished, but the son of perdition. He knew 
perfectly that all their real work was begun, 



112 God and Man 

continued, and ended in Him ; that He was back 
of all as the vine is back of the branches ; and that 
without Him they could do nothing. Jesus was 
the great worker. 

What is true of Jesus is true of the Divine 
in general. My Father, said Jesus, worketh 
hitherto. God Himself is the infinite worker. 
In due time it shall appear that what man does 
is much. But here and always it must be realised 
that what God does is much more. It is of no 
less than transcendent importance that the greater 
working of God should be realised. 

Whither shall I go from Thy spirit ? 

Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? 

If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : 

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. 

If I take the wings of the morning, 

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 

Even there shall Thy hand lead me, 

And Thy right hand shall hold me. 

Does the great God dwell and work in the life 
of man as He works in all the fields of space? 
There the Lord is God indeed. We behold Him 
there the cause of every cause, the law of every 
law; the source of the phenomena of heaven, the 
power of the processes of earth; the original of 
milky ways and all their shining frame, the ground 
of the birth of worlds and all their evolutional 
advance ; the origin of cosmic order, the seat of 



The Greater Workine^ of God 113 



universal beauty,' the fountain of all life — ^the 
Creator, the everlasting God, the Almighty, 
without whom "not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground." 

But does He work in the life of man as well? 
From Him we came, deriving being. He created 
us in His own image and breathed into us the 
breath of life. We are life of the Father-Life, 
heart of the divine Heart, mind of the infinite 
Mind, and spirit of the eternal Spirit. He fur- 
nished us with our marvellous heritage, making 
us heirs of all the ages; and He set us into this 
infinite total Environment. In Him we live 
and move and have our being. He pours His 
life into us every moment. He throbs in every 
heart-beat and breathes in every breath. He 
weaves every life-tissue and builds up every 
cell. He acts in every instinct and pours Himself 
through every passion ; He moves in every impulse 
and utters Himself in every intuition. Through 
all the ranges of the body He reigns supreme, 
and throughout all the realm of sub-conscious 
mind. But does He dwell in consciousness and 
the Higher Life also ? He is in the root and stem 
and branch and bud of life. Is He in the flower 
too? 

Multitudes may not realise that God is in 
Consciousness as truly as He is in nature, and in 
their own bodies, and in their sub-conscious 
life. Spiritual realities do not wave banners 

8 



114 God and Man 

and shout. The divine Presence may be all the 
more real and rich the farther it is removed from 
"observation. " God was not in the ' ' earthquake. " 
The field of consciousness after all may be the 
peculiar field for the "still small voice. " Because 
multitudes fail to realise the presence of God 
does not determine that He is absent. "Surely 
God is in this place, and I knew it not." All 
things of surpassing greatness work with little 
observation. How does environment work? How 
does the sky itself work? How does all nature 
work? How does heredity? How does civi- 
lisation? Or how does the infinite Yesterday 
work on in To-day? With little comprehension 
indeed. Silently the vital air feeds all the fiames 
of life. Holy light transfigures earths and the 
lives of men, they know not how. Celestial 
beauty works in human sotils subtly like an ether. 
Divine truth brings heaven to earth and works 
like a hidden leaven. All the vastest energies 
act noiselessly like the Dawn. While we slept in 
the night, we sped among the stars, carried on 
the bosom of a fast-gliding world; and ere we 
awaked, we were rolled into a sea of light. The 
Universe itself acts upon us in majestic silence. 
And God too ever worketh and must work with 
the infinite subtleness of Spirit. 

God is in His heavens; God is in His earth; 
He is in the bodies of men, and in their sub- 
conscious lives. Is He in consciousness more? 



The Greater Working of God 115 

He is in the darkness. Is He in the day yet more ? 
"Through night to light" do we come into the 
fuller presence of God ? 

The fields of nature can never be His very 
home. His life divine can dwell richly only in 
the high temple of a kindred spirit. All lower 
things are too poor in kind to be surcharged with 
His high life. He is present indeed in the vibrant 
atom, but His home is in the trembling hearts 
of men. He dwells in the wave of ether it is 
true, but more richly in a wave of love. He is 
in a flash of lightning, but more in a flash of 
thought. He is in the falling dew, but more in an 
ascending prayer. He is in the propulsion of a 
meteor, but more in the will of man. He is in 
the orbits of stars, but more in the shining paths 
of saints. He dwells in the beauty of sunsets, 
but more richly in a beautiful life. He is in the 
singing of birds, but far more in the song of the 
soiil. God is ever3^where in the ascent of nature, 
but more truly in the aspirations and ascent of 
humanity. He lives indeed in all that is, but 
His true home is in the hearts of men. Not in 
flaming stars, nor rock-ribbed earth; not in the 
glory of sunsets, nor the stately march of seasons ; 
not in the spangled heavens, nor the happenings 
of worlds, nor in all the pageantries of earth and 
sky, is the proper abode of God. He dwells 
in the higher glories of character; in the pure 
heart and the holy will; in godlike thought and 



ii6 God and Man 

divine affection; in the kindred temple of the 
Hving soul. Lower forms of Reality can contain 
Him but meagrely. They are too poor in quality 
to hold the fulness of His life. God is Spirit; 
and Spirit can dwell richly only in spirit; Mind 
only in mind. 

But why is it then that He is more readily 
manifest in nature than in humanity? Why is 
He more evidently present in the orbit of a star 
than in the will of a man? The lower the order 
of Reality, the more transparent the veil. The 
higher the order, the less transparent the veil. 
He is more simply, readily evident in the blowing 
of the wind than in the inspiration of a soul; 
in the uplifting of a continent than in the uplifting 
of a character ; in the rising of the sun than in the 
dawn of a new civilisation. Because the higher 
forms of Reality are more complex and involved, 
His working there is subtler, deeper, more hidden. 
For the same reason the activity of man is more 
evident in the building of a cathedral than in the 
composition of a symphony ; and in the composi- 
tion of a symphony than in the renaissance of a 
life. The mother's activity is more manifest 
in the new gown she has made for her daughter 
than in the new life she has been labouring to 
develop. Our parents are always more simply 
evident in the houses they build for us and the 
dinners they prepare, than in the beings they 
impart and the ctdtiires they give. Likewise 



The Greater Working of God 117 

God is more readily manifest in nature than in 
humanity ; for nature is lower, simpler ; humanity 
is higher, more complex. Nevertheless, nowhere 
is humanity so deep in its activity and so illimitable 
in its scope as in parenthood ; and nowhere is Di- 
vinity so rich in its working as in the creation 
and new-creation of sons and daughters of God. 

Take the richest and noblest life that ever it 
has been one's joy to contemplate and think 
how it is charged and surcharged with the life 
of God. Look at its large and fair proportions 
and see how God has been the sovereign worker 
in and through the whole resplendent result. 
He is all its light and splendour as the sun is 
the radiant glory of the jewel. Could we behold 
what God has wrought within that shining life, 
the story would be worth the telling. In the 
beginning He conceived its rich design and from 
His own life sent it forth a created being. He 
imparted to it those limitless possibilities and 
shut up within its hidden chambers those mys- 
terious powers. He brooded with His quickening 
life all the stages of its growth. He was the light 
of its dawning consciousness, the affection within 
its awaking feeling. He was the revealer within 
its budding knowledge, the wilier within its 
forming will. He was the thinker within the 
thought, the doer within the deed. He was the 
spring of its holy motive, the source of its nobler 
appreciation, the secret of its nameless longing, 



ii8 God and Man 

the power of its boundless aspiration. He was 
both the vision of its soul and the light of all its 
seeing, — God, the orderer of its harmony, the 
grace of its graces, the Spirit of its spirit, the 
great Background of all its being and doing. 
He was the "author and finisher" of its glory. 
"Of Him and through Him and unto Him," 
were all the things that constituted its light and 
splendour. 

It is with a rich life as it is with a growing 
plant. God is the great worker in and through 
a beautiful character, as nature is the great worker 
in and through a plant or a flower. First the 
blade then the ear then the full corn in the ear, 
marks the stages of the growing corn, and doubt- 
less each several stock has had its own struggle 
for existence. Doubtless every fibre and every 
cell has wrought incessantly to the golden end. 
The plant for its part was all activity. But if 
the waving corn could know the larger truth; 
if the roots could know of the broad earth under- 
neath, and the stem could know of the elemental 
air around, and of the vapoury clouds above, 
and of the far-off oceans that feed them, and of 
the boundless light and heat of the sun, — if it 
could know that the nourishing earth fed its 
every rootlet, and the vital air breathed life in 
through its every pore, and the dew and the rain 
watered all its thirst, and the light of the sun shot 
it through and through with its golden beams until 



The Greater Working of God 119 

the yellow corn was changed into the very gold 
of the sun,- — if the waving corn knew what all 
nature through every stage of its growth had 
done, it would know that the divine Universe, 
and not itself, was the great worker. One has 
only to drop a seed into the ground and to think, 
that the instant it touches the earth, back of that 
little seed is the round world and the mighty sun 
and the wide heavens and all the infinite network 
of cosmic influences, — one has only to contemplate 
that vast background and feel how it works in 
and through the little seed day and night, from 
the first sprouting of the germ to the final ripen- 
ing of the harvest, in order to realise forever the 
incomparable activity of nature. The harvest 
was the result. But heaven and earth certainly, 
and not the tiny seed, were the great agency. 
By this time surely it must be clearly evident 
that what we here have seen, the relation of 
nature to a growing plant, is something more 
than a weak symbol of God's relation to a grow- 
ing life. The plant against its infinite background 
is more than typical of human life against the 
infinite God. For the plant, set into nature, 
lives and grows and has its being in God as truly 
as we; and human life, set into God, lives and 
moves and has its being in nature as truly as 
the plant. A beautiful soul is of a higher order, 
and soars up into the life of God as the plant 
can not. But it is forever fixed and set into that 



I20 God and Man 

infinite Life, as a star is set into the heavens or as 
a plant is set into the earth. 

Man works out his own salvation, it is true, 
with fear and trembling; but back of all, as we 
thus have seen, it is God that worketh in him both 
to will and to work, of His good pleasiire. Every 
good gift and every perfect boon is from above, 
coming down from the Father of lights. Of 
Him are all things, and unto Him is the glory. 
God is the great worker. 

Scarcely anything is more important than to 
realise that the living God is working in human 
life, and that, if any of us ever come to nobility 
and richness of character, it will be God, and 
not we, who will be the supreme agency therein. 

Now of this momentous fact men are more or 
less aware. Because this is what all men vaguely 
feel. This is what religious lives always vividly 
have realised. This is what the deepest religious 
spirits most profoundly have felt; what the pro- 
foundest religions always have seen and pro- 
claimed; and what Christ Himself, with His 
perfect wisdom, has confirmed and sealed. 

This is what all men at least vaguely have felt. 
They are not totally unconscious of the great 
Background. However absorbed they may be 
in their private selves, they are not wholly oblivi- 
ous of the Universe. They are at least vaguely 
aware of that universal Frame and of its eternal 



The Greater Working of God 121 

presence in their lives. Man cannot live in a 
Universe and be altogether dead to the infinite 
fact. The part must subtly feel the presence of 
the conditioning Whole. Men ever3rwhere like- 
wise vaguely feel the presence of God. 

Not a few moreover have become so aware of 
life's great Environment that the thought of it 
has come to be even oppressive. They have 
grown so conscious of its vastness and of its all- 
conditioning influence, that there seems little 
room left for personal agency of any kind. To 
such a degree are they aware of other presences 
and powers, that they fear lest the nucleus of 
Self may dissolve into common nature. At any 
rate it is very evident that men feel the presence 
of something besides, and vastly greater than, 
themselves. 

We do not live long in this mysterious sphere 
before we get the conviction that life is more 
than it seems. We become convinced that there 
are more things in our little world than at first 
we dreamed of. There are intimations of currents 
beneath. Consciousness feels the presence of the 
sub-conscious. The crest of the wave feels the 
push of the sea. The surfaces ever3rwhere become 
conscious of the deeps. Life indeed is like a 
bubbling spring at the foot of a mountain. At 
first it is aware of itself only as it wells up and 
overflows. There is where it comes to the sur- 
face and to the light. But at length it must feel 



122 God and Man 

the pressure of the streams below, and know its 
connection with the watery chambers in the 
mountain's heart, and with the snow and the rain 
that fall upon its summit, and with the moving 
clouds above, and with all the ocean sources far 
away. Life truly is not what at first it seems. 
Its inland springs are connected with such distant 
seas, its surfaces with such profound deeps. 

This is the normal life of every day. This is 
the life of the tranquil sea and of the gentle 
breeze and of the smiling sunlight. In hours 
like these life may glide so smoothly on that the 
fair ship may little heed the elements. It may 
be little conscious of anything besides its own 
gallant self. But lo ! let the elements change. Let 
a dark frown settle on all the face of things. 
Let a hurricane burst suddenly upon the waters. 
Let the tempestuous waves rise and break in 
fury, and the winds rage and strike with unpitying 
wrath, and the storm beat and howl with terrify- 
ing and awful power, and the blackness of night 
encircle everything like a funeral pall, — ^let the 
proud ship be caught and whirled and torn in such 
titanic forces, and it will feel as never before the 
presence and grasp upon itself of the most common 
environing elements. A ship in a storm becomes 
conscious of everything. It creaks and trembles 
under the rude knocking of their presence. It is 
even so with human life. It is in the storm and 
crisis that we are made painfully aware of the 



The Greater Working of God 123 

everlasting forces that hold us. It is when we 
are buffeted by the winds of fortune, or tossed 
upon the seas of trial, or smitten by the storms 
of adversity, or enshrouded by the night of des- 
pair, that we plainly realise how we are held 
in the inexorable hand of power. Nevertheless 
it was the ocean from the beginning that buoyed 
up the ship throughout. And it was the wind 
all the while that swelled in its full sails. And 
it was the abiding heavens that gave it the guiding 
stars to the end. It is not otherwise with human 
life. For although in the storm and crisis things 
are more acute, nevertheless, from beginning to 
end we are held in the constant pressure of life's 
atmospheres, and upborne ceaselessly by the 
faithful continents of earth, and surrounded ever 
by the unchanging heavens that sleep not. 

There are few times in life's brief span when 
we are made more aware of the grasp of nature 
and of God than when overtaken by sudden 
sickness. And there are few things in life more 
full of pathos and suggestion than the sight of a 
grown man lying in weakness on a bed of pain. 
But yesterday he awoke with the dawn and re- 
joiced as a strong man to run his course. To-day 
he has not strength to raise his head. And it 
all seems to him as though he were held in the 
unbreakable grasp of alien forces; as though he 
were caught irresistibly "in this common net of 
death and woe and life, which binds to both." 



124 God and Man 

But in reality he is no more in the hand of nature 
and of God in sickness than in health. 

With each new morning we vaguely feel as 
though life were given to us anew out of the hand 
of God. We take up once more this ' ' pleasing anx- 
ious being," and it seems as though it were given 
to us afresh out of the fulness of that divine Life 
which slumbereth not neither is weary. And 
every night as we lie down to sleep, it seems like 
laying our tired head against the bosom of God 
and yielding back this costly conscious life into 
the keeping of the eternal Parent. We let go 
our very body, and give up our intimate self, 
and surrender our little life to that great divine 
Life, and sweetly sleep. When we awake we 
seem to be with God, and when we sleep we fall 
asleep in Him, But again, in reality, we are 
no more with Him at the waking dawn and at the 
close of our conscious day, than we are with Him 
through all life's active and eager hours. 

And in that greater morning, at the dawn of our 
adult life, we had a like though larger experience. 
Then we felt that life itself was a gift. We knew 
that we did not make ourselves, but that the 
great gift came to us from above. We awoke 
to self-consciousness and discovered that we had 
"ourselves on our hands." When life's candle 
was lit, lo! the candle itself was already there, 
set into its golden socket. In that first great 
morning of life, the larger truth was all so simple 



The Greater Working of God 125 

and clear: we were so close to the Creator, so 
newly come from Him, that His divine Father- 
hood and our human childhood and life itself 
as the gift of God, were truths as clear and fresh 
as that first morning. It was as though a little 
island had been lifted up out of the mighty sea, 
and when morning broke, it discovered itself, 
and lo! it was already there, set and framed in 
the infinite sea. 

And at the end, in life's great close, men feel 
more vividly still how near the human is to the 
Divine. They are face-to-face with the great 
Beyond. They feel that they are passing into 
the presence of God. They have not the power 
to stay, nor yet the power, like a sovereign, to 
go. A thousand forces, not themselves, close 
round them here in victory. Other forces from 
out the great Beyond are sweeping them irresisti- 
bly on. They leave this bourn of time, and are 
carried by other tides out upon the ocean of 
eternity. They are taken. They are with God. 
In such great hours all men feel how much God 
has to do with human life. At the two horizons, 
plainly, of life's morning and of life's evening, 
the Heavens bend down and touch the earth. 
But again the sky that we touched so plainly 
in life's morning and once more so plainly touched 
in life's evening, arched above us through all our 
earthly pilgrimage, and was the supreme deter- 
mining factor throughout: as the Heavens, not 



126 God and Man 

the earth, are always the chief factor in every 
product here below. 

Thus we all at least vaguely feel the presence 
of God. We feel Him as we feel the Universe. 
We feel the subtle tides of His life in our calm 
and uneventful hours; but in the great storms 
and crises we feel the mighty and awful pressures 
of His presence. We feel Him again and again 
at the waking dawn and at the close of our con- 
scious day. And we feel Him in life's great 
beginning, and in its great and solemn close. 
God is the great Background. 

Moreover what all men feel vaguely is precisely 
what religious lives come to feel vividly, and what 
the deepest religious souls have always most 
profoundly realised. That God is the great 
worker in and through our human life is no dead 
truth to men and women who are really religious. 
It has dawned upon their consciousness as one 
of the mightiest facts in our human history. 
They see that their higher life is His spiritual 
creation. They feel Him everywhere. They feel 
His presence underneath working up and through 
all. They feel Him at the centre. They know 
that He is the prime mover in every action. They 
feel Him in the fountain and in the stream. 
They have passed from self-consciousness to a 
great God-consciousness. The clouds and dark- 
ness that shut them into their little world of self 
have lifted. They have discovered the divine 



The Greater Working of God 127 

Heavens. They have seen them go round the 
earth. They have seen them take up the Httle 
earth into their own vast celestial system and 
movement, and penetrate every atom and activity 
of its being with their infinite influence. And 
they have seen the heavens as the supreme agency 
in every process and product of earth. Thus 
likewise they have seen God enfold their human 
life as the author and finisher of all its virtue. 
And thus deeply religious lives come to feel the 
presence of God everywhere. They, the pure 
in heart, see God. They experience Him as the 
background of their own life and that of humanity ; 
as the background of nature and the kingdom 
of truth ; as the ground of beauty and all ideals. 
Ever3rwhere they dwell in the presence of the 
living God. One has only to think of Paul, or 
Origen, or Augustine, or Calvin, or Edwards, 
or Phillips Brooks. To them verily God be- 
came evermore the "All in all. " 

The deepest religions, as we should expect, 
have always seen and proclaimed this great truth. 
Buddhism is perpetually in danger of remerging 
the individual completely, Mohammedanism will 
hear nothing but its own cry, "Allah is great!" 
"Allah is great!" and naught of human free will. 
Judaism looks up to its sublime Jehovah in whose 
hand our breath is and whose are all our ways. 
And Christianity, in deeper wise, will see man as 
living and moving and having his being in God. 



128 God and Man 

More than all, this is what Christ Himself has 
confirmed and sealed. He saw perfectly that 
God is the great worker everjrwhere. He saw 
Him in the birds of the heaven and in the lilies 
of the field ; in the sun which He makes to shine 
on the evil and the good, and in the rain which 
He sends upon the just and the unjust; in the 
stature of man to which man could not add one 
cubit, and in the hairs of his head, not one of 
which he could make white or black ; in the human 
talents with which God entrusted man, and in 
the higher life that ever must come to him as a 
new birth from above. Everywhere He saw the 
superior working of God: in life's Baptism and 
in life's Pentecost ; in life's nourishing Communion, 
and in its growing Transfiguration. 

Now all this indeed is what we should expect 
if God is really God and man is man. In the 
nature of things God must be the supreme worker 
everywhere. He must be verily God in the life 
of man as He is in the shining stars and the grow- 
ing plants. In truth, in the higher life of man 
He is more fully and perfectly God than anywhere 
else. He can not be so richly and completely 
such on any lower plane. And though He 
must work through the spirit and will of man 
in producing the excellency of character, never- 
theless it is there that He is pre-eminently 
present, as the sun is more richly present in the 
flower than in the stock. In the temple of 



The Greater Working of God 129 

man's higher life is where God is present in His 
glory. 

This finally is what men rejoice in when the 
gracious and sublime fact has become even meas- 
urably revealed. It is the joy of all living to 
know that God is in our life. We rejoice in it 
as we rejoice in the sky and as the bud rejoices 
in the springtime. To have a great element of 
Life, that is more congenial to us than a mother, 
that parented us at the beginning, that parents 
us still, that carries us up from one degree of 
glory to another, that is the impulse of our flight 
and the wings by which we rise, — ^that surely 
is a cause for fundamental and enduring joy. 
Those who thus deeply come to themselves, and 
so come unto the Father, have found the secret 
place where joy abides. 



CHAPTER VI 

WHY IS OUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD'S WORKING 
SO MEAGRE? 

IF the great truth about each of our Hves is that 
of the priority and parenthood and greater 
working of God, why are we not more conscious 
of the fact? Why is God's working not more 
evident? Why does He hide Himself to such a 
degree? 

This is one of life's great questions, — just and 
necessary, and of intimate concern to us all. 
For men in general have but a meagre God- 
consciousness. Only the richly religious lives 
have the rich consciousness of God. This ques- 
tion is so insistent, and the great human experience 
that urges it, so widespread, that already, in 
chapter five, we were obliged to give certain 
suggestions of the answer. 

Why is not every man more aware of the fact, 
we ask, if God has so much to do with his life ? 

The truth is we are so absorbed in self and self- 
activity that we little heed the not-self. In this 
self-conscious stage, we have discovered the self 
and are supremely interested in it. We have 

130 



God's Working — ^Why not more Clear 131 

discovered our varied active powers and are 
supremely engaged in their exercise. The other 
powers that work in and through us are not to the 
fore. We are absorbed in the everywhere pre- 
dominant self. This is the stage in which the 
consciousness of God is most meagre. We see 
youth almost universally in this stage, and nearly 
all men, who have not developed the deeper life, 
we see lingering in this stage still. Multitudes 
of such persons are about us on every side. They 
are all self-consciousness, all activity. They are 
busied in a thousand things; they are swallowed 
up in the whirlpool of self. Of course such men 
are little conscious of God as they are little con- 
scious of anything outside, even the Universe. 
It is a most wonderful fact that men by the 
million can become so absorbed in self and self- 
activity that they are ail-but oblivious even of 
the Universe. Such men would seem to be in- 
deed no more oblivious of God than they are of 
the Cosmos. The almightiness of a fact and the 
vastness of its actual influence would seem to be 
no guaranty whatever of its place and prominence 
in human consciousness. It is as though the 
volcano became so absorbed in its own eruptions 
that it quite forgot the liquid fires and the sub- 
terranean forces beneath. Here is a part of the 
reason why God is not more manifest in the 
consciousness of the multitude. 

Let us deliberately look at the greatness of this 



132 God and Man 

thing that is before our eyes. On the one hand, 
we have the mighty fact of the omnipresent God 
creating and preserving human Hfe everywhere 
and bearing the great relation to all its growth 
that the vernal sun bears to the spring. On the 
other hand, we have the consciousness of most 
men well-nigh oblivious of the mighty fact. Why 
is this? We are here attempting a serious answer 
to this assuredly great and grave question. 

But the answer must go deeper. It is, in large 
measure, because of the nature, particular devel- 
opment, and limitation of this our human type 
of consciousness. 

It is of the nature of human consciousness 
that it should be more aware of the human than 
of the divine side of life. For life is a double 
thing, made up of a particular and of a universal 
element, just as a grass-blade is a double thing, 
made up of the special nature of the grass and 
of the common nature of the Universe. Accord- 
ingly we are more conscious of the near than of 
the far side of life, of the particular than of the 
universal element. It is the siirfaces of life's 
sea that are lit up by consciousness. The deeps 
lie hidden in the darkness underneath. Never- 
theless the deeps are always there, and it is the 
depths that bear the surfaces, not the surfaces the 
depths. Still it is the surfaces that, in the first 
instance, we are most aware of. It is the hither 
side, the individual, the particular, the distinctive, 



God's Working — Why not more Clear 133 

the self-hood side, of which, in the egoistic stage, 
men are mainly conscious. It is in the nature, 
therefore, of our human type of consciousness 
that we should be more aware of the human than 
of the divine side of life. This is specially true 
in the period in which we are developing toward 
the fuller self-consciousness, gathering into in- 
dividuality, rounding to a separate self. 

And this brings us to another truth. It is 
because also of the particular development of our 
htmian consciousness that we are not more aware 
of life's background. At first we are not con- 
scious of anything, not even of ourselves. Then 
we pass into a very simple objective consciousness. 
Then we develop gradually into a pronounced 
subjective consciousness. And finally, if life 
completes itself, we unfold into a higher objective 
consciousness again. Not that we pass from 
stage to stage as we pass from country to country, 
leaving each land behind us at the boundary 
line. Rather we pass from stage to stage of our 
growing consciousness as we pass from childhood 
to youth and from youth to manhood. The 
child and the youth are taken up into the man. 
For about the true manhood there is something 
essentially childlike, and the true old age is 
always "young with the eternal youth." Ac- 
cordingly in childhood we have a very simple 
and instinctive consciousness of the not-self and 
of God, with a vague consciousness of self. In 



134 God and Man 

youth, a growingly clear and pronounced con- 
sciousness of self, with a lingering instinctive 
consciousness of God, but with preludings toward 
a higher consciousness. And in adult life, if that 
fuller stage is really attained, we have a higher 
intellectual and spiritual consciousness of God, 
with a subordinated consciousness of self. 

Another fact, involved in the above, is the 
permanent limitation of the conscious field. 
Incalculably more things are represented in life 
than are presented to consciousness. We range 
also from the zero of infancy up to the highest, 
fiillest consciousness of maturity, and from the 
unconsciousness of sleep up to the amplest con- 
sciousness of our richest waking hours. Very 
evidently our human consciousness is limited — 
not that of the commonplace man merely, but 
that of Plato and Shakespeare as well. The 
richest moments of the highest consciousness of 
human-kind are yet severely limited. All worlds 
are represented within the circle of life. But 
little thereof is reported. This is true even of 
lower worlds. It is doubly true of the higher, 
subtler, greater worlds. The heavens, indeed, 
may be mirrored in a mountain lake as it lies still 
in the moonlight. But the lake itself may be 
conscious of little more than its own shimmering 
surface, and only the eye that looks down into it 
is aware of the heavens that are mirrored in its 
depths. The permanent and severe limitation of 



God's Working — Why not more Clear 135 

the illuminated surfaces of life as compared with 
its mysterious and unfathomed deeps is and re- 
mains a fact of large magnitude in accounting 
for the poverty of our consciousness of God. Not 
that life may not go on, if it will, and fulfil itself 
in a rich knowledge of God ; but even so a tithe will 
not be known of the God that is dwelling and 
working within. 

What has now been said about consciousness 
has a legitimate range and implication which 
must not be limited by the necessary brevity of 
our treatment. Most fundamental and determi- 
native aspects of life have been indicated. The 
nature, and the particular development, and the 
permanent limitation of this our human type of 
consciousness account for much indeed of the 
poverty of our consciousness of God. 

Another deep and far-reaching fact about life is 
the law that it is first the natural then the spiritual. 
When life begins, as our human lives do, with the 
physical and unfolds and unfolds toward the 
spiritual, it is inevitable that God should be thus 
hidden in the earlier stages. We have only to 
contemplate with adequate insight our pre- and 
post-natal history, to follow the course of life 
through the various stages of its progression, in 
order to understand that the fuller spiritual ex- 
periences must await the fulness of time. We 
do not expect the flower to burst from the root. 
We understand that the course of development 



136 God and Man 

is first the grosser root and last the finer 
flower. 

Herewith we arrive at the law, that, back of all, 
it is the spiritual and only the spiritual that is 
able to realise the presence and activity of God. 
Only to the degree that human life is spiritually 
developed, only to the degree that it is made like 
God, can it ever either become aware of, or 
appreciate, the working of God who is Spirit. 
Spiritual realities are spiritually discerned. Bles- 
sed are the pure in heart, for they, and they 
only, shall see God. We see only what we have 
eyes to see. The world may be radiant with 
light, but the unawakened eye sees it not. Earth 
and sky may be all glorious with beauty, but the 
slumbering aesthetic nature perceives it not. 
The lines of truth may have gone out through all 
the earth and her words to the end of the world, 
but the unquickened mind little heeds them. 
Even so God may pervade everything that the 
eye looks out upon and the very being of the 
onlooker too, but the unawakened soul is little 
conscious of His presence. We see only what we 
have eyes to see. 

Already we have crossed more than the threshold 
of our next truth, that it is only the richly de- 
veloped spiritual life that can realise richly the 
presence of God. Therefore the reason why 
most men have such a meagre consciousness of 
God is because their spiritual natures are so little 



God's Working — Why not more Clear 137 

developed. On the other hand, the reason why 
some lives see God everywhere, see everything in 
God, and God as the great Background of all, 
is that their spiritual natures have been superla- 
tively and beautifully unfolded. 

That this must be so is involved in the concept 
itself of the religious life, as we look upon its 
nature. For one of the deepest possible views 
is that which sees it as the development of the 
God-consciousness along with the self-conscious- 
ness, and the proper harmonising of both in the 
unity of the higher life. That in such a higher 
life God is consciously realised, is involved in the 
nature of the life. That the atmosphere as well 
as the oil is present in the flame, is already im- 
plied in the nature of the flame. And whenever 
human life bursts into a divine flame, God is 
always present as the chief element in the flame. 
This being the essential nature of the religious 
life, we no more expect to find it without the 
indwelling God, than we expect to find flowers 
without sunlight or ripened intelligences without 
truth. 

There are other reasons why God is not more 
manifest, to be found in the character and nature 
of God. God does not send the fuller light of 
noon-day to the life that has turned away from 
the dawn. The universal law of reverent use is 
applicable pre-eminently on the high plane of the 
Spirit. To him that hath shall be given, and 



138 God and Man 

from him that hath not shall be taken away even 
that which he hath. He gives not that which is 
holy unto the dogs, neither casts He His pearls 
before the swine. 

Moreover God always proportions His great 
revelations to the capacity of His children — milk 
for babes, strong meat for men ; the intimate inner 
circles for the growing spiritual friendships. 

Nor, as President King has pointed out, does 
God obtrude Himself. He seeks, not to make 
machines, but to develop persons. He does not 
thrust Himself into the centre and displace the 
personal self. He so acts as in every way to 
develop that self. And although He is the su- 
preme agency in this as in all things. His activity 
here is such as, not to annihilate, but to brood 
and augment personality. Just as the wise 
human parent is careful not to intrude into the 
inner circle of the child's personal will, but seeks 
to foster its centrality and bring it into more 
pronounced activity and final dominion. Even 
so God acts, always with most delicate regard for 
the free personality of His children. Otherwise 
He would interfere with, instead of promoting, 
their development. 

Finally and more fundamentally still, God 
could not develop our human life into true spir- 
ituality unless He Himself wrought as spirit. In 
the last analysis spirit can be developed only 
through the pure working of Spirit. God could 



God's Working — Why not more Clear 139 

not work as physical phenomenon, or as cosmic 
law, or as animal life, or as rational truth, or as 
natural beauty, and develop man as spirit. He 
could not work as earthquake or as whirlwind 
or as fire. He must work spiritually after the 
manner of the still small voice. He must work 
with the immediacy and subtlety and reality of 
Spirit. He must work as inspiration. Only so 
could He create and new-create a soul. Only so 
could He awake and perfect the higher life of 
man. Herein is to be found the ultimate reason 
why God, as Spirit, is not more manifest in the 
lower ranges of human life. He can reveal Him- 
self as Spirit only in the higher life of man. And 
only as He is realised as Spirit, is He truly and 
richly known. But He can not be thus known 
except by the developed soul. 

The reason, as we view it, now has been set 
forth, why God is not more clearly evident in the 
consciousness of most men. Subjectively, it is 
because they are so absorbed in self and self- 
activity ; it is because of the nature, the particular 
development, and the limitation of this our 
human type of consciousness; because, in the 
course of life, it is first the natural then the 
spiritual; because Spirit is apprehended only 
through spirituality; and because men's spiritual 
natures are so undeveloped — which, by the very 
concept of the religious life, precludes the reali- 



I40 God and Man 

sation of God. Objectively, it is because God 
does not send the fuller light to those who are 
untrue to the light they have; it is because He 
proportions His revelation to the capacity of His 
children ; because He does not obtrude and hamper 
their free self-realisation; and above all because 
He must work as Spirit in order to develop 
spirit in man. 



CHAPTER VII 

MAN AT WORK, OR THE RESPONSIVE RECEPTIVITY 
AND CO-OPERATIVE ACTIVITY OF MAN 

HITHERTO we have been made aware of the 
great Environment, the realms of ReaHty 
rising range beyond range, range beyond range, 
from the lowest physical up to the highest spir- 
itual. We have realised that the true vastnesses 
and immensities are the infinite ethereal and 
spiritual domains. We have seen that vast 
divine Environment, those infinite circles and 
systems and spheres, enfold and enfold the life 
of man endlessly. Then we have witnessed them 
at work. We have seen the heavens of truth, 
beauty, ideals, and Spirit acting upon the life of 
man. We have seen the great divine Environ- 
ment in its unfailing priority forever anteceding 
and parenting all his life. And we have realised 
that the Heavens are always the supreme agency 
in every process and product here below. Thereby 
we have become conscious of the infinite Environ- 
ment, and of the Priority, Parenthood, and 
greater Working of God. 

When thus we behold Heaven and Earth con- 

141 



142 God and Man 

federate and co-operant, saying, "Let us make 
man," and see them moving together in creative 
activity upon him, and God working in and 
through all, creating man in His own image, in 
an unbroken continuity of process, then we want 
to turn and look at man who is the focus and 
centre thereof, and see and know what response 
he is permitted to make thereto, what part and 
lot he himself has therein. Herewith we arrive 
at the Responsive Receptivity and Co-operative 
Activity of Man. 

First of all it is given man to accept or reject 
the great circles and spheres of higher power. 

He may accept or reject the higher life of the 
Home. Whatever treasures of affection, what- 
ever riches of thought, whatever purity and 
sweetness of spirit there may be, they are forever 
pressing themselves upon young life for accept- 
ance. And youth may either accept or reject 
them. This is the power that is given to every 
life sooner or later in growing degree. We did 
not choose our parents, we say, we were not 
consulted. And that is true — but true only along 
the lower ranges of life. If those who were 
fathers and mothers to our bodies and to the 
inferior ranges of our psychic beings, ever became 
an3^hing more, if ever they became in the true 
and large sense intellectual and spiritual fathers 
and mothers to us, it was not without our con- 
sent. Their principles, their ideals, their fineness of 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 1 43 

spirit, the graces and amenities of their character, 
all the superior wealth of their lives, could be 
given to us largely only through our own consent 
and co-operation. They could become parents 
to us in the nobler and fuller sense, parents to 
our higher life, only through our free choice. So 
it comes to pass that we choose our parents in the 
highest sense. Lower parenthoods we do not 
choose. Higher parenthoods we do. It is a 
remarkable fact that even our own fathers and 
mothers could not father and mother us in the 
highest way without our free consent. And 
many a man accordingly owes his larger mental 
and spiritual parentage, not to those whose name 
he bears, but to some other rich and noble life 
outside the home altogether. Thus, like the 
prodigal, we all may accept or reject the higher 
life of the Home. 

In the same way we may welcome or refuse 
the higher life of Humanity. All the noblest life 
of the world and the redeemed life of the Church 
and the higher civilisations of mankind are 
perpetually pressing upon us for acceptance. 
The prophets and seers of the higher are forever 
seeking us out and calling to us while we sleep. 
The apostles and missionaries of the Kingdom 
of Heaven sail over all seas and land upon every 
shore, cr3dng: Behold we stand at your door and 
knock. And the civilisation of the West presses 
and beats upon the sleeping East, vexing and 



144 God and Man 

troubling her sleep and her dreams, until a new 
India, a new Japan, a new Egypt, a new China, 
awakes into higher life. So it is, all the higher 
life of the world, like a new morning, is beating 
at our windows. But we may keep the shutters 
closed and the curtains drawn if we will. In the 
deepest sense no new day shall ever dawn upon 
our inner life without our consent. In ways pro- 
founder than we commonly note, and with pre- 
rogative almost divine, we either say or refuse 
to say: For this our inner world, let there be 
light. 

It is given us also to receive or reject the life 
of God itself. That great life, it is true, is always 
seeking us and drawing near to us like light from 
heaven; is always bending over us like a sky and 
sending down its blessed rains and dews; is 
surrounding us day and night and ever pressing 
upon us like an atmosphere. It reveals itself in 
the countless phases of truth, and comes to us 
in all the forms of beauty, and manifests itself 
in the perfect loveliness of ideals. And it comes 
yet closer in the mighty and mysterious incarna- 
tion of Christ the Son, and closer still in the 
subtle and divine inspirations of the Holy Spirit. 
That great Life indeed is always pressing upon us. 
Nevertheless it is in our power, if we like, to 
reject His divine truth, and deaden our souls 
to the celestial beauty, and to resist the charm 
of the lovely ideals, and to refuse His divine and 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 1 45 

only Son, and to grieve His Holy Spirit withal. 
We may accept or reject God. 

The stupendous fact is that all the varied and 
combined kingdoms of higher life are besetting 
us behind and before and pressing in upon us 
perpetually. And we may accept or reject them. 
Nothing is more certain than the mighty and 
infinite Environment into which we are set. 
Nothing is more sure than that that great En- 
vironment is not dead but alive, not inert but 
active. It is the prevalent dulness of our ordinary 
consciousness that we are so nearly oblivious to 
the mighty fact, or that we so lightly regard it. 
For scientific and philosophic and spiritual in- 
sight, on the contrary, the marvellous fact is 
becoming more and more impressively real year 
by year. How fine and subtle and varied, as 
well as vast, those higher realms of Reality are 
is becoming likewise realised. Our scientists at 
length are telling us what our philosophers told 
us long ago and what our spiritual men knew 
from of old. They are telling us of the wonderful 
subtlety and complexity and variety of the 
ethereal realms of Reality. For all deepest 
insight and experience those realms are most 
real — ^those higher atmospheres and sunlights 
and ethers and electricities; those spiritual laws 
and harmonies ; those eternal truths and heavenly 
ideals; those divine beauties and glories; those 
spiritual natures and societies, and that infinite 



146 God and Man 

spiritual life of God, penetrating everything like 
an ether, and surrounding all like the heavens. 
How marvellous the fact is! How kingdom 
interpenetrates kingdom, element pervades ele- 
ment ! The finer atmosphere pervades our coarser 
body; the still finer heat and light pervade both; 
and the subtler ether permeates them all. In- 
visible electricities and motions and energies 
vibrate and beat through everything. Law and 
order reign. Truth grounds and conditions all. 
Harmony and beauty and ideals suffuse the 
whole. Life animates ever3rthing. Sensation 
quivers throughout. Reason rules ; will energises ; 
love is interfused; mind pervades and dominates 
everywhere. And Spirit, over and around and 
in and through all, infinite Spirit. 

All these inscrutable circles and spheres and 
systems of power are pressing upon our lives and 
permeating them ceaselessly. And God is pour- 
ing His life in varied ways through them all, and 
coming to us always and offering us Himself. 
We do not go up into heaven to bring Him down ; 
He comes to us and presses upon us like the 
atmosphere; He comes and would penetrate us 
like the sunlight; He comes to enter us like 
Spirit. The pressures of His presence are upon 
us ever3Awhere. 

And it is ours to accept or reject. We may 
open or close ourselves as we like. This is the 
part and prerogative of man. Our atmosphere 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 147 

is not indifferent and aloof ; it seeks to rush in and 
give life. But we may keep it out if we will. 
Our sunbeams are not idle; they would pierce 
into the seats and centres. But we may close 
our eyes to them if we choose. And we move 
about here in more than one divine atmosphere; 
we live our lives in more than one world of light. 
The world of truth is not dead. The realms of 
beauty are not inert. The firmament of ideals 
is not passive. They are as active as air, as 
eager as light. Civilisation is not dormant. 
Higher natures and societies are not inoperant. 
The Kingdom of Heaven is not in pause. Nor 
is Christ dead, nor the Holy Spirit in suspense, 
nor the living God asleep. And we live our lives 
in the centre and focus of all these active and 
eager spheres of Power. We may open our- 
selves to them, or we may close ourselves to them 
as we will. This is the sovereign part and pre- 
rogative of our human nature. Yea ; every ocean 
of influence is washing our shores; every wind of 
God is blowing upon our lives; every star in His 
sky is piercing our night. The living God through 
the living Spirit, the living Christ, the living 
ideals, the living beauty, the living truth, the 
living Church, through the whole living Heavens 
and earth and all that is therein, is always coming 
to us and knocking at all our doors. We for our 
part may open, if we will, and no one can shut. 
We may shut and no one can open. We may 



148 God and Man 

receive or reject God. Here is the prerogative 
of man. 

The newer science fortunately has obliged 
us to turn our eyes toward the Environment. 
So doing it has been true to Reality, and has 
rendered humanity measureless and abiding ser- 
vice. But Reality is vaster than earth. The 
great Environment is more than physical nature. 
There is a heart, mind, and spirit environment. 
There is a truth, beauty, and ideal environment. 
There is the infinite environment of Deity. So 
then there is a spiritual Heavens as w^ell as a 
physical earth. And the Heavens are greater 
than the earth. But together they make up 
the great Environment into which the life of 
man is set. We look at the primal fact of things 
when we turn thither, and up into the infinite 
greatnesses when we gaze into the sky and at the 
life of God. How vast the totality is; how 
wonderful; how bewildering! Yet it is only when 
in this way we sweep up from earth into the heaven 
of heavens that we gain the true vision at all. 
And it is the total Reality, the World-All in its 
integrity, and not a part thereof, that is the true 
world of man. That is his great Environment. 

If there is thus an environing Heavens as well 
as an environing earth, an environing Deity as 
well as an environing nature, how different at 
once the mighty fact of environment becomes! 
Man's environment? Yes; but what is it? Mat- 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 149 

ter? Certainly; but Spirit more. Humanity? 
Yes; but Divinity yet more. The true environ- 
ment must be the total Environment. Man may 
be provincial in his thought, but in his life he 
is not provincial; his body connects with the 
cosmos, his mind is implicated with the infinite 
Universe. God says to man: Lift up your eyes 
unto the heavens of Divinity and behold your 
great Environment. 

And we are beginning to learn that the great 
Environment is not an infinite passivity. It 
broods all life as the wing of the bird broods the 
egg in the nest, or as the heavens in May brood 
all the up-springing life of earth. The Kingdoms 
of Heaven besiege and beset the life of man. 
The great Environment is in truth an infinite 
parenthood, — from the parenthood of the family 
up to the parenthood of God, from the mothering 
of Nature up to the mothering of the Infinite 
Love. All is parental. God is forth-going. He 
bows the heavens and comes down. 

How majestic the truth is! How sublime and 
satisfying the movements of God toward man 
are ! His divine mornings break upon our world. 
The laws of God come down upon earth's Sinais. 
The Son of God from the excellent glory descends 
to men. The Spirit of fire is poured out from 
heaven upon all the upturned faces. God Him- 
self ever comes. Lo! He is with us alway. 

His part, we know, is the great part from ever- 



ISO God and Man 

lasting. He comes and floods all the heavens 
with light. Nevertheless the earth for its part 
must roll into the dawn for itself. Man must 
turn and face the morning and enter into every 
new day of God for himself. His part is less, 
but still is great. It is his to accept or reject 
the great circles and spheres and systems of 
higher power. 

It is not his to step forth and speak the world 
into being, and set in motion its waves and tides 
of influence. It is not his to lift up the skies and 
charge the heavens with power and set going 
their infinite processes. It is not his to awake 
the morning and the springtime with a shout 
and command their coming. It is not his to 
create the mighty worlds of truth and beauty 
and ideals and fill them with their subtle and 
vivifying life and activity. Nor is it his to speak 
the divine Logos into existence and bid Him be 
about the universal business of the Father. Nor, 
to cause the quickening Spirit of life to be, and 
to brood the face of the deep and the lives of men. 
Nor yet is it his to authorise the infinite and 
eternal Background of all and to start it on its 
course of never-ceasing creation. 

But it is his in every higher way to accept or 
reject any or all of these. He may accept or 
reject in the higher sense even the earth on which 
he stands. For the earth has something more 
to do than furnish a foundation; it has a high 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 151 

ministry to the mind. He may accept or reject 
in the higher sense the starry heavens above. 
For they have something more to do than grasp 
him with physical power; they have to suggest 
that his own life should . have a sky, and take 
part in the creation thereof. Likewise he may 
accept or reject human-kind; not in the lower 
sense, to be sure, but in every higher sense. 
There is not a world that he may not choose or 
refuse. In lower and cruder ways the world 
of truth may impart itself without consulting 
us; but not in higher ways. In all nobler and 
ampler forms man may close himself to that fine 
world if he choose. Universal beauty can work 
upon us in low degree without our leave. But 
that subtle world can do none of its diviner work 
in us against our will. Christ acts upon us in 
His inferior ministries whether or no. But in 
His high salvations we must freely choose and 
accept. Even to Him we may open or shut. 
We can not go anywhere away from the divine 
Spirit, and His elementary functioning He will 
fulfil without permission. But His true celestial 
work He never will do against the barrier of our 
will. And though God Himself is and remains in 
all the bases of our life and is our Father in the 
lower sense, yet He is neither God nor Father in 
the higher sense and will never be unless we 
choose Him with the everlasting yea and amen 
of our total being. So it comes to pass that not 



152 God and Man 

one of all otir worlds can do its diviner work 
without our co-operant assent. They all may 
work in the inferior and coarser ways, but not 
in the superior and finer. Earth, sky, humanity, 
truth, beauty, ideals, Christ, God Himself may 
do no glorious thing, may build no cathedral 
character, apart from human choice. Such is the 
Father's will. 

Man in truth may withhold or grant to his 
worlds all their high permissions. He may choose 
or refuse to say: "O Earth, thou art permitted 
now to feed as thou desirest my higher nature and 
not alone my lower. Sky, now art thou permitted 
to hold me as thou seekest to do, with thy celestial 
gravitations, and create a sky within. O Human- 
kind, now mayest thou fulfil thy work and im- 
part the bloom and glory of thy life to mine. O 
Truth, now mayest thou flood my heavens with 
thy divine light. O Beauty, now mayest thou 
refine and transfigure my whole being forever. 
O ideal World, now thou mayest reveal thy 
heavenly vision to my willing soul. Son of the 
Father, now mayest Thou come unto Thine own 
and unfold the image of God within. Now, O 
divine Spirit, mayest Thou awake and glorify 
my life without end. And now. Father in heaven, 
mayest Thou unhindered build the temple of 
character, and make me at last a son indeed." 
Man may verily veto or permit the higher minis- 
tries of every sphere. The lower ministries are 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 153 

beyond his power. The higher he solemnly 
elects. 

It is very impressive and magnificent to think 
of man thus. It is solemnising too. In lower 
ways he is the child of all worlds, willingly or 
unwillingly. In higher ways he becomes the 
child of none, apart from his own choice. There 
is splendour of prerogative indeed. There is 
royal lot enough. What truly is man, that thus 
Thou art mindful of him? For Thou hast created 
him verily but little lower than God. Thou hast 
crowned him with glory and honour. 

We come then to this : that though apparently 
we are thrust into the world without our consent, 
and though apparently earth and sky and all the 
spheres of our great Environment are thrust 
upon us without our leave, it is so only in lower 
ways. It is not so in higher. The truth is that 
in higher ways nothing is thrust upon us. We 
choose all and every world, else they remain 
forever without their high product. 

Moreover the crowning fact is added that, in 
the higher sense, we choose life itself. Quite 
the opposite of this, at first sight, would seem to 
be the fact. Life, if nothing else, would seem to 
be thrust upon us, not elected. But this is true as 
before only on the lower ranges. It is true only 
of the bulb and root of life. It is not true of 
the higher stem and glorious flower and divine 
fruitage. All rich and full and excellent life for- 



154 God and Man 

ever must be our own solemn and persistent 
choice. 

It therefore and finally appears that it is our 
high prerogative to accept or reject both the great 
Environment in all its nobler agencies and life 
itself in all its nobler ranges. 

How all this accords with the great simple 
positive messages of the Bible and the living 
pulpit is plain to see. The question of acceptance 
or rejection instinctively has been felt to be the 
fundamental and critical question of life. There- 
fore the divine voices from the beginning have 
cried: "Accept the Christ"; "Come home unto 
the Father"; "Receive the Holy Spirit"; "Open 
your heart to the truth"; "Become receptive 
to the divine beauty and glory"; "Adopt the 
Christian ideals forever. " And the lowliest 
herald of such great things has been wise indeed 
with a deeper wisdom than he knew. 

This is true for incommensurable reasons. 
Because to accept or reject is to connect or dis- 
connect with the great circles and spheres and 
systems of higher power; and to connect or 
disconnect, is to let those worlds of power pour 
into and have free course in human life. Here 
is the mysterious greatness of acceptance or 
rejection. 

A little child takes an acorn in its hand and 
lays it upon the ground and covers it over with 



Responsive Receptivity of Man 155 

a handful of brown soil. The instant the seed 
touches the earth it makes connection with all 
nature, new and different connection. It con- 
nects with the whole world and with the living 
atmosphere and with the rain-clouds above; it 
connects with the sunbeams and the mighty sun; 
it connects with the total Universe. Back of that 
little seed at once are the earth and the solar 
system and the infinite cosmos. All the energies 
of heaven and earth forthwith lay hold upon 
it and pour their influences into it. The very 
moment therefore that the little seed touches the 
ground it makes connection with all worlds and 
opens itself to the mighty influences of them all. 
That is a marvellous touch. Those are stupen- 
dous and amazing results awaiting thereon. As 
though the sun stood still in the heavens and all 
nature were in pause, waiting for that touch, 
before they would go on with the grand pro- 
cessional of creation. 

The seed is man. Its touch is his acceptance. 
Its connection with nature is his connection with 
the infinite God. Thereby he connects in a new 
and higher way with the Divine, and opens him- 
self to the infinite spiritual energies, and permits 
them to enter into and have free course in his 
higher life. Here is the mysterious greatness 
of acceptance or rejection. 

When an artist embraces with his whole being 
the world of beauty, he lets into his life, by that 



156 God and Man 

beautiful alliance, immeasurable influences. When 
an earnest soul opens itself seriously to the world 
of truth, it lets in boundless power. When a 
poet flings wide open the doors of his nature to 
the true, the beautiful, and the good, he lets in 
celestial fascinations and diminions. When a 
persecuting Saul beholds the heavenly Christ and 
opens his soul to Him, he lets in the Lord of all 
authority, and henceforth his life is held as with 
the hand of Heaven. And whenever seekers after 
the Divine an3rwhere open wide their believing 
hearts, they welcome and let in the almighty 
and eternal God. 

Man stands as it were within the dynamic room 
of creation. He presses the buttons of the uni- 
versal batteries. He connects with the infinite 
and celestial energies. Thereby he lets them 
into his life and gives them free course, unto the 
glorifying of his humanity and to the glory of 
God. To accept the Divine is to connect with 
the Divine. 

We now have arrived at a point where we may 
sketch to the best advantage the relation of our 
human life to the Divine. We have given the 
great higher Environment and its creative ac- 
tivity and never-ceasing stimulation. We have 
then the life of man accepting or rejecting this; 
so connecting or disconnecting from it all ; thereby 
letting the higher powers into his life through 



Responsive Activity of Man 157 

a great receptivity. But all receptivity is also 
activity; and all activity in response to a stimu- 
lating environment must be co-operative. Hence 
we have the great receptivity and co-operating 
activity of man. Moreover the activity must 
grow with all his growth into a great co-operating 
activity. But co-operative activity itself is, on 
the other side, receptivity. Hence both the re- 
ceptivity and the activity of man imply the great 
Environment and its continuous stimulation. 
Therefore they are both responsive. Consequently 
we have, at the beginning and throughout, the 
great divine Environment and its activity of 
creation and its never-ceasing stimulation. And 
in response thereto, we have the great receptivity 
and the ever-growing co-operative activity of 
man. 

Now we have made the transition from re- 
ceptivity to activity, for all receptivity is at 
bottom activity. We have made the transition 
also from activity to co-operating action, for all 
activity in response to a stimulating environment 
is co-operative. With this we come in sight of 
the third aspect of the part man plays in the 
world. Already we have seen that he accepts or 
rejects the higher; that thereby he connects or 
disconnects with the higher; thus letting the 
divine influences freely into his life. Now we see 
that he also co-works with the Divine in the 
upbuilding of his own higher being. When he 



158 God and Man 

accepts God and when he connects with God and 
when he lets the divine powers into his Hfe to 
change and to spiritualise and to develop, he is 
not like the bay that passively receives the ocean 
tides, nor like the windmill that motionless waits 
for the winds of heaven. He is active and co- 
operant through all. He actively accepts, he 
actively connects with, he actively co-works with 
the great God throughout. 

Life in all its forms is active and co-operant. 
There is no non-active life. Life and activity 
are inseparable. The humblest cell is and remains 
a wonderful centre of activity and co-operation. 
The great Environment can not be so overwhelm- 
ing in its greatness as to reduce the tiniest living 
thing into insignificance and bare receptivity. 
A speck of protoplasm can maintain itself in its 
true nature and activity as over against the 
stimulating worlds. Wherever in general there 
is a living thing there is activity and co-working. 
Up and down through all the kingdoms of life 
there can be no mere mechanism or dead me- 
chanical response. Nature in all its greatness 
does not suppress the individuality of a grass- 
blade. On the contrary, it begets and promotes 
it. And the grass-blade set into universal nature 
is not only receptive throughout its every pore 
but also active and co-operant in every cell of 
its being. Even the himible grass-blade does its 
part, and co-works with the Universe. 



Responsive Activity of Man 159 

Much more does man do his part. He does his 
great part on every plane. He co-works with God 
ever3^where. The peasant co-works with God 
when he turns the furrow and scatters the seed. 
The woodman co-works with God when he fells 
the tree and frames the house. The miner co- 
works with God when he digs out the ore and 
smelts it in the flame. The mariner co-works 
with God when he makes the seas his pathway and 
guides his craft by the stars. The engineer co- 
works with God when he lays down the rails of 
commerce across the face of a continent. The 
inventor co-works with God when he dallies and 
conjures with the sunbeams and yokes the winds 
and harnesses the vapours and tames the lightnings 
and speaks through the atmosphere above or 
through the ocean depths below. The artist 
co-works with God when he makes the marble 
live under his touch or the canvas mirror the 
beauty and soul of humanity. The composer 
co-works with God when he fills the temple of 
man's spirit with sweet sounds and makes life 
itself a symphony. The poet co-works with God 
when he sings of truth and life and goodness and 
glory and of the Author of them all. And the 
devout soul co-works with God when it repents 
and prays and wrestles and yields and loses 
itself and then finds itself again on a nobler plane, 
become the servant and apostle of the Highest 
forever. Man co-works with God on every plane. 



i6o God and Man 

He co-works with God more intimately and 
richly on the higher planes than on the lower. In 
the fields of agriculture it is true he may plough 
and hoe; but he remains outside of the growing 
corn. He does not enter like raindrops into the 
sap. In the marts of commerce he may buy and 
sell ; but he lays remote and foreign hands on all 
he touches. In the centres of manufacture he 
may combine and form; but he is always other 
than the thing he makes. He is outside, like the 
potter with the clay. In the world of invention 
he may render matter plastic to the touch of 
ideas; but the invention continues too much one 
thing, the inventor another. In the sphere of 
architecture he may build the cathedral, and in 
a way may build himself into the temple he rears ; 
but he is not yet himself the thing he makes. 
In the kingdom of science we note a difference: 
there he may come upon the great cosmic law; 
but it is difficult to say whether he discovers it 
in the world without or uncovers it in the world 
within, or rather in both. In the realm of real 
art he is freer. There he does not copy, he creates. 
He hews himself out of the marble. He paints 
himself upon the canvas. In deeper and more 
intimate ways he co-works with beauty, and 
with God. In the world of music he is even 
freer. He pours forth the symphony from his 
soul. The glorious creation and his own more 
glorious powers unite in one. In the high domain 



Responsive Activity of Man i6i 

of poetry he co-works more intimately still. 
He sings the great poem out of his own deep life 
and is himself the poem that he sings. But 
nowhere is he so free as. in the superior dominion 
of life and character. There he co-works with 
God most deeply and intimately of all. There 
he becomes the truth that he obeys, the love that 
he longs for, the spirit that he welcomes, and 
the life that he receives. He works together 
with God in the inner room of being, as spirit 
working with Spirit. On the superior planes 
of life man co-works with God most intimately, 
most richly. 

It is indispensable that man should do his part. 
It is thus that God has created and constituted 
the inner nature of things. It is not that God 
alone shall work in man both to will and to work 
of His good pleasure; but that man also shall 
work out his own salvation with fear and 
trembling. The stimulating Environment with 
its ten thousand stimulations shall never un- 
fold and complete one living organism, if it 
work alone through all eternity. The living 
thing must do its part. It must co-w^ork in its 
own production. The lifeless product may be 
manufactured from without. The living thing 
must live and grow from within. It must act 
and co-work in its own upbuilding. The very 
structure and make, the essential nature and 
concept of life involves this. Life must act, must 



i62 God and Man 

organise, must co-work in its own creation. Of 
the two concepts, receptivity and activity, it is 
activity that is necessary and indispensable to 
the nature and being and inner idea of a living 
thing. Therefore it is not alone the stimula- 
tion of the Evironment, but also the response of 
the organism. It is not alone action from with- 
out, but also action and reaction from within. 
Every living thing must act and co-work in 
creating the being that it becomes. Much more 
must man act and co-work in his own upbuilding. 
The dews of heaven fall in vain upon the barren 
rocks. In vain does spring speak to the dead 
and unresponsive tree, though its roots are still 
in the ground and its branches still stretch out 
into the atmosphere. In vain does the mother- 
bird bring food to the little fledgling lying sick 
and dying in the nest. In vain does light itself 
fall upon the heavy and sleeping eyes. In vain 
do the sounds of words strike upon deaf and 
unregarding ears. In vain do the long rows of 
wise books in the great library surround the heed- 
less and unresponding page and look down upon 
him to no purpose from their classic shelves. 
In vain do the famous galleries, with their immor- 
tal canvases painted in heaven, look down year 
after year upon many an ancient care-taker. 
In vain does the glory of the day and the solemn 
majesty of the night roll over the silent city of 
the dead. All these call in vain where there is 



Responsive Activity of Man 163 

no response. The voices of earth and sea and 
sky, all the influences of human-kind and of heaven 
together could not produce one curve of beauty 
or one line of grace upon the face of human char- 
acter without human response and co-working. 

After a fashion we all know this ; we know that 
we must do our part, that we must put forth 
effort. We know that we must look in order to 
see, listen in order to hear, attend in order to 
feel. We know that the books of men and the 
book of nature and the Book of God are not read 
merely by being opened. We know well that 
the mind must go forth and mingle with and 
penetrate them in order to read their great pages. 
We know that we must act and go forth and meet 
the worlds of beauty. We must enter into the 
quiet beauty of the meadows, enter into the 
glory and solitude of the mountains, into the wild 
grandeur of the ocean storm, into the sacred 
splendour of the setting suns. Deeper insight has 
made it clear that we must act and go forth and 
co-operate in order to present any outside object 
to consciousness, must go forth in a spontaneous 
activity of creation in order to present any exter- 
nal world whatever, or to have such a world for 
consciousness at all. Indeed consciousness itself 
is an activity, an up-springing, and no world 
without or object within shall ever be felt or 
known without our personal activity and co- 
working. Thus it is experientially seen and 



1 64 God and Man 

critically shown that the law of activity and co- 
working is everywhere operant on the lower 
planes. But it is not sharply realised by every- 
body that the same law is equally operant on 
all the higher planes. Those however who have 
experienced and known, those who dwell in the 
highlands, realise that the law of co-operation is 
just as imperiously necessary there as it is on 
any of the lowlands of human life. There more- 
over is where the law is most pronounced. There 
is where man's agency is most free. As we climb 
up the ascending terraces of human life, human 
activity, as we have learned, becomes constantly 
freer, richer, and more prominent. Those who 
really exercise faith, know that faith in the divine 
and invisible is a great and forth-going activity 
of life. Those who really love know that love to- 
ward God is a most rich and elevated and com- 
prehensive activity. Those who really pray know 
that profound prayer is a large and wondrous 
outpouring of the whole stream of life toward God. 
Those who really surrender know that total self- 
surrender to God is the greatest, most inclusive, 
most difficult, most triumphant of human acts 
and achievements. Those who really appreciate 
know that true appreciation of the divine and 
the ideal is magisterial and sublime activity of 
the human spirit. Those who seek really to 
know God and to be like Him, to change light 
into life, divine ideals into living character, know 



Responsive Activity of Man 165 

that here is humanity's hilltop of abiding and 
glorious struggle. All in truth who really live 
know that life itself is a grand perpetual deed. 
They realise that it is a soldier business, a quitting 
of themselves like men, a warring of a good war- 
fare on to the end. So certain is it that men must 
stir up the gift of God that is in them and fight 
the good fight and be workers together with 
God. 

Moreover it is no external co-operation. It 
is intimate and internal. We co-work with God 
in building up our own higher being. We are 
not completed when we come to the years of 
accountability and to the day of life's consecration. 
We are only successfully begun. We are only 
the foundation of what we are to be. On that 
foundation is yet to be built the true temple of 
character, the temple of the higher life. And we 
co-work with God in utter faithfulness in all such 
temple-building. It is as though the mountain 
wrought in its own uplifting, or as though the 
star wrought in the creation of its own shining 
being. It seems passing wonderful that we are our 
own co-creators. Yet in this we are not unique. 
All life from the amoeba up to man co-works 
in its own creation after its own degree. This 
is the note and character of life. We can not 
conceive of life at all or of any living thing as 
not participating in its own upbuilding. The 
little coral animal may make its calcareous deposit 



1 66 God and Man 

upon the rising island, and the island in this way 
may be formed by additions from without, 
until at last it lifts itself in "soft and gentle 
loveliness" like a crown above the sea. But the 
little anthozoon itself was not so built. It w^as 
of a different order and grew from within and 
took part in its own upbuilding. 

The same is pre-eminently true of man. He 
is the summit and crown of life. He pre-eminently 
co-works in his own creation. Consider for 
example the venerable countenance of Gladstone 
in its rich and marvellous personality. And 
consider the part he himself had in that mag- 
nificent achievement. His face remains before 
one's eyes. How wonderful it is! How large 
the light of his intellect ; how strong and majestic 
his will; how fine and magnanimous his feeling; 
how elevated and grand his soul; what calm 
consciousness of power; what triumph of the 
profounder self ; what massive solidity of character ; 
what subtle suggestions of infinite connections 
and belongings! Compare the greatness and 
splendour of that result with the first infantile 
beginnings, and compute the part he had in that 
grand attainment. It is as though the little 
redwood seed had grown into the giant sequoia, 
or as though the lowly foundation had risen and 
climbed into a glorious cathedral. So different 
is the tiny beginning from the majestic culmina- 
tion. But not one white stone of character 



Responsive Activity of Man 167 

wotild have been laid upon another; not one tier 
of greatness would have risen; not one suggestion 
of mass; not one line of magnificence; not one 
pinnacle of glory would have come into being, 
without him. He co-worked in his own creation 
and the result was a "spiritual splendour"; but 
without him no cathedral character would have 
risen at all. 

It is illuminating to contemplate this. It is 
deeply instructive and quickening. The develop- 
ment is so great. The beginning is so humble; 
the end so magnificent ; and man's part so re- 
gal and pronounced. Behold what man hath 
wrought! — Behold what God hath wrought ! Un- 
der God man decrees or vetoes his own higher 
being. And under God he co-works in its con- 
tinuous and sublime creation. 

It is apparent from the foregoing how absolutely 
we look upon a human life at birth as only begun. 
It is apparent that we regard life as capable of a 
marvellous and continuous creation. And it is 
precisely this magnificent development and expan- 
sion that alone represents our proper and essential 
humanity. We are not properly human at 
birth; we are born to become human. Human 
nature is not flesh and bones, but developed 
mind and spirit. Not the little infant, Saul, 
but the full-grown man, Paul, properly represents 
our humanity. It is the rich and complex per- 
sonality that alone realises and reveals our 



i68 ■ God and Man 

essential human kind. Not the little seedling 
but the grown tree, that has come to full bloom 
and gone on until at last it is heavy-laden with 
the fruit of life's mellow autumn, properly typifies 
our human kind. But no nature-type can begin 
to do justice to our complex and wonderfiil 
unfolding. The utmost conceptive and imagi- 
native endeavour can not justly picture the elab- 
oration and range of the full human spirit. 
What a piece of work indeed is man! "how noble 
in faculty! how infinite in reason! in form and 
moving how express and admirable! in action 
how like an angel! in apprehension how like a 
God!" Yet all this majestic dignity and marvel- 
lous richness and range would be impossible with- 
out human endeavour and co-working. Under God 
man decrees his own higher being. And under 
Him he co-labours in its progressive creation. 

And under God we determine oiir own higher 
participation in the divine Nature. God on His 
part hath granted unto us all things that pertain 
unto life and godliness, through the knowledge 
of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue ; 
whereby He hath granted unto us His precious 
and exceeding great promises ; that through these 
we may become partakers of the divine Nature. 
Yea, and for this very cause, we, on our part, 
must add all diligence; and in our faith supply 
virtue; and in our virtue knowledge; and in our 
knowledge temperance; and in our temperance 



Responsive Activity of Man 169 

patience ; and in our patience godliness ; and in our 
godliness love of the brethren; and in our love 
of the brethren love universal. For if these 
things are ours and abound, they make us to be 
not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, Wherefore we, for our 
part, are to give the more diligence to make our 
calling and election sure; for thus shall be richly 
supplied unto us the entrance into the eternal 
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
So it is, under God, we determine our own higher 
participation in the divine Nature. With God 
are the primary decrees always. With Him are 
the absolute creations. And His are the primal 
determinations as well. But with man are the 
secondary decrees. And with him are the co- 
operant creations. And his also are the secondary 
determinations. This is the part and high pre- 
rogative of the individual man in relation to 
himself. 

In relation to God, man decrees or vetoes, in a 
secondary way, the divine purpose for his higher 
human life. "This is the will of my Father, 
that every one that beholdeth the Son, and be- 
lieveth on Him, should have eternal life." "Ye 
will not come to me that ye may have life, " And 
in relation to God, man promotes or thwarts 
the divine purpose and activity of continuous 
creation on the plane of the higher human life. 
"As many as received Him, to them gave He 



lyo God and Man 

the right to become children of God, even to them 
that believe on His name: which were born, not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
will of man, but of God." "He could there do 
no mighty work," because of their unbelief. 
And in relation to God, man elects or refuses to 
become the expression and manifestation of 
God — ^the expression and manifestation in a higher 
way of the nature and character and life of God. 
"I am the vine, ye are the branches." "That 
ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who 
called you out of darkness into His marvellous 
light." Thus in relation to God man decrees 
or vetoes His purpose, promotes or thwarts His 
creative activity, and becomes or refuses to 
become the manifestation of Him in the world. 

In relation to other human beings man, under 
God, decrees or vetoes their very existence. And 
when they are born he decrees or vetoes, in a 
more limited way, their higher life and co-works 
in its development. Thus in relation to other 
lives man chooses or refuses to become the channel 
and medium of the purposive and creative life 
of God. One of the most amazing things that it 
is given each generation to do is to stand between 
the creative life of God and the new generation 
to be. This to every thoughtful mind must seem 
a growing wonder. 

In every great direction the part and prerogative 
of man are surpassing. In relation to himself 



Responsive Activity of Man 171 

he co-creates his own higher Hfe. In relation to 
God he co-decrees and co-labours in the progres- 
sive creation. In relation to other human beings 
he stands between the creative life of God and 
all the generations unborn. 

The part and prerogative of man are surpassing 
indeed. His responsive receptivity and co-opera- 
tive activity are great to a kingly degree. In 
all higher ways it is his to accept or reject the 
Divine, to connect or disconnect with the Divine, 
and to co-work therewith in all God's creative 
activity humanity- ward. No Kingdom of Heaven, 
no higher kingdom, is brought in without his co- 
operation. This is the way God has set man into 
His on-going plan and process. Truly the Father 
has created His children in His own image and 
crowned them with regal dignity. "Is it not 
written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If He 
called them gods, unto whom the word of God 
came, and the scripture can not be broken ." 

We have attributed now to man a large and 
surpassing prerogative and function. We have 
assigned to him superlative worth. We have 
crowned him, as God crowned him, with glory 
and honour. 

Finally let it be said that nothing but a large 
and worthy view would seem to be possible. It 
must be large enough to balance our great human 
duties and responsibilities. The Christian religion 
is forever weighing the soul of man over against 



172 God and Man 

worlds ; forever attaching unspeakable importance 
to human choices ; forever attributing momentous 
and endless consequences to human deeds; for- 
ever declaring a high and eternal destiny as gravely 
conditioned upon our earth-life here below. Hu- 
man life must be of infinite pith and moment to 
match such boundless consequence. Great con- 
ception must company with great conception. 

We therefore attribute to man under God a 
supreme receptivity, a supreme activity, and a 
supreme responsibility. He works out his own 
salvation with fear and trembling; and it is all 
a great and grave and glorious business. And God 
works in him all the while both to will and to 
work; and this only adds to life's greatness and 
significance. 

Herewith is sketched what appears to us the 
true conception of the responsive receptivity and 
co-operative activity of man — of the part man 
plays here in the world. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WHAT GOD IS WORKING TOWARD 

THUS far we have set man into his actual 
Universe and have seen God enfold his 
life with many spheres. We have looked upon 
the corresponding variety of human powers. 
We have beheld God at work as the Great Worker. 
We have inquired why man is not more conscious 
of the divine working. And we have witnessed 
man too at work in response to God. Now we 
would see what God is working toward, what He 
is seeking to produce. 

He is seeking to create a complete man. Through 
all the kingdoms of Reality that fold us round, 
He is seeking to create a centre of life of high 
complex order, to produce a complete human 
being. God said : Let us make man. 

Nature is seeking to produce the full-grown 
man. The kingdom of life is struggling up to- 
ward its culmination in man. Civilisation is 
seeking to crown the world with man. Christianity 
is labouring to produce the perfect man. If 
God is not seeking to create the complete human 
life, then He is out of harmony with His universe. 

173 



174 God and Man 

No ; nature and life and civilisation and Christian- 
ity are expressions of God. What they are pro- 
ducing He is creating. In and through the 
World- Whole, in and through each several sphere 
of Reality He is seeking to develop the perfect 
man. 

God is seeking to do on the higher human plane 
what He has done on the lower planes of life, 
vegetal and animal, only He is seeking a result 
of far superior type: He is seeking to produce a 
centre of life, but a centre of high complex order. 
He is seeking to produce a universally and per- 
petually receptive centre of life; a being whose 
receptivity is so perfect that he shall become 
medium and agency of Divinity. He is seeking 
to produce a universally and perpetually active 
centre of life; a being with activity so high that 
he shall become parent of humanity and co- 
creator with Deity. He is seeking to produce 
a centre of high complex life, with nature so 
varied and comprehensive that it shall be a wide- 
ranging human personality; of so high an order 
that it shall be an expression and child of God. 
Thus He is seeking to make the complete mian. 

It is good to know that what God is doing 
on the plane of humanity is to a degree parallel 
with what He has been doing on the vegetal 
and animal planes. For here as there He seeks 
to produce a centre of life, only the result that 
He seeks is of far superior type. From bottom 



What God is Working Toward 175 

to top of the vegetal realm, from the single cell 
up to the regal oak of the forest or to the sensitive 
plant, God has made each separate thing a dis- 
tinct centre of life. Likewise throughout the 
animal kingdom, from the protozoon up to the 
anthropoid ape. He has created each organic 
form an individual centre of life. Order above 
order, range above range. He has lifted up the 
forms of life into a grand scale of organic being. 
At the top He would create a centre of life of 
transcendent order. As therefore we look down 
and up the long ascent, one sees man set by God 
into the developing history, a part of the age- 
long evolution of life. 

It is good to see man thus. It is good to see 
him set into the vegetal-animal kingdom of life, 
when we see also that he is king of the kingdom. 
It is good to see him a part of the long ascending 
series, when we see him the culminating and final 
term thereof. It is good to see him connected 
with all the lower forms of life, when we also see 
him in his mysterious being rise and soar above 
them. We shall understand both him and them 
better, understand the life-process better, and 
understand God's goal for man and his continu- 
ously creative activity upon him better. 

God is seeking to create a universally and 
perpetually receptive centre of life, a being wide- 
open to all worlds. 

He has suggested after what fashion He would 



176 God and Man 

have man open to Nature by the way He has 
made him open and receptive in his body. His 
physical being is open to all the foods of earth, 
his lungs open to the atmosphere, his eyes to 
light, his ears to sound, his mouth to tastes, and 
his nostrils to odors. His skin is made sensitive 
to heat, his muscles to pressures, his nerves to 
stimuli. He is influenced by waves of ether 
from far-off stars, and affected by electricities 
that flash through the infinite spaces, and held 
fast by the cords that bind the Universe into one. 
In fine he is blown upon by all the winds of heaven 
and caught in all the currents of earth. God 
has made man in his body as open and receptive 
to nature as a sponge is to water. 

Similarly He would have him wide-open in 
all higher ways. He would have him open and 
receptive to the mighty fact and solid reality 
of nature; open to the immensity, the irresistible 
power, and the ^Eonian persistence of nature; 
open to the variety in unity and the unity in 
variety; open to the change in the midst of con- 
tinuity and the continuity in the midst of change; 
open to the ceaseless ongoing, the mighty fact of 
growth, and the perpetual new-creations therein; 
open to the struggle, tragedy, a,nd death ; open to 
the springtimes of victory and life; open to her law 
and order and symmetry and beauty and perfec- 
tion ; open to her rigour and domination ; to her 
gentleness, parenthood, and servantship as well; 



What God is Workinor Toward 177 



open to her honesty, obedience, faithfulness, and 
patience ; open to her freshness and health and san- 
ity and peace ; open to her joy and seriousness and 
solemnity; open to nature's solitude and society, 
to her silence and speech; open to her order and 
ranges of Reality, to her fundamental fineness 
of being and process, to her depth and mystery, 
to her basic divinity, to her immanence, transcend- 
ence, and inclusiveness, and to her subtle and 
inexhaustible symbolism. God would have man 
open and receptive to nature in all her aspects 
and on all her planes. It would be a pleasure 
to expand each theme of the above into a para- 
graph did our limits permit. The wide-openness 
of the full-grown man to nature is a rich and inspir- 
ing thing to contemplate. Any system of philo- 
sophy or science or religion that does not make 
much of this must prove hopelessly inadequate. 
Man's eldest parent and Bible must remain his 
living mother and nurse and teacher and com- 
panion to the end. 

In the same way God seeks to create a centre 
of life open and receptive to Humanity. He would 
make a great and complete man, sensitive to the 
tender yet fathomless appeal and mission of the 
little child, sensitive to the morning freshness 
and heavenly fires and divine prophecy of youth, 
open to the enterprise and achievement and 
mastery and character of maturity, and receptive 
to the sweetness and mellowness and richness and 



178 God and Man 

glory of age. The complete man is open to the 
small and the great, the commonplace and the 
unique, the naive and the cultured. The great 
and complete man that God would make, is open 
to humanity with all its hopes and fears, its 
doubts and beliefs, its defeats and victories, 
sorrows and joys. For the man indeed that 
God intends, the teachers do not teach in vain 
and the statesmen plan in vain, and in vain the 
inventors contrive. Neither in vain for him 
do the scientists discover and the philosophers 
think and the artists create and the musicians 
compose and the poets write and the preachers 
preach and the prophets prophesy. He is as 
open in his affections as he is in his instincts^ 
as open in his mind as in his heart, and as open- 
souled as open-minded. He is ever alive and 
receptive to the incomparably greater riches of 
the universal heart, receptive to the greater 
treasures of the racial mind, and open to the more 
priceless treasures of humanity's soul. The great 
and complete man is open and receptive in all 
the ranges of his being to the greater humanity 
on all its ranges. 

Likewise He would develop a centre of life, 
a human personality, open to universal Law and 
Order. Physical law, mental law, ethical law, 
spiritual law — to all these realms He would have 
man open; not merely as the unconscious subject 
of them in his body and in his subliminal life, 



What God is Working Toward 179 

but also as their conscious knower and wide-open 
recipient. There has come to the modern mind 
a new and greater consciousness of natural law, 
greater than the world has ever known. What 
does it mean but that a grander and more insistent 
consciousness of moral and spiritual law shall 
come? There never has been and can never be 
a magnificent life without a magnificent conscious- 
ness of law. Other backgrounds there must be 
we know, but this too is absolutely indispensable. 
A great consciousness of a majestic moral order 
and of the majesty of spiritual law is and will 
ever be indispensable to majestic strength and 
growth. Nothing could be finer in its sphere 
than the splendid vision of cosmic law that has 
been coming to human- kind. What is needed is a 
sublime and more constant vision of the highei 
law of God. Kant's great consciousness of the 
majesty of the moral law needs indeed to become 
universalised. And what are the starry heavens 
themselves and their majestic calm order for, 
but to tell of the sublimer order and symphony 
of a greater Background? To this most of all 
wo-uld God have man open and receptive. And 
through His divine order ever3rwhere He would 
have him behold the everlasting Divinity, as 
men behold the sun through the glory of the light. 
Again God would develop a being wide-open 
to the world of Truth. He would make a man 
noble enough to love truth for its own pure sake. 



i8o God and Man 

wise enough to know that truth is the mind's 
proper and essential food, sure that any admixture 
of error is like a fcetid thing attainting the pure 
atmosphere, great enough to know great truths 
from small and to keep great things in the central 
places of life, and high enough and clear enough 
to distinguish higher truth from lower and to 
keep the sky forever above the earth, — not being 
mentally confused and bewildered like a sand- 
storm in a desert, when earth and sky seem com- 
mingled and all becomes the dust of earth. A 
being, in a word, God would create who knows 
how to go up and down on the heavenly ladder 
of truth and feels most at home on the upper 
rounds, as open to all truth as the diamond to 
light, and craving ever more and greater truth 
as he advances toward the stature of the full- 
grown man, knowing certainly that the greater 
the tree the more it drinks in of heaven's atmo- 
sphere and sunlight. This is the man that God 
delights to develop, one who rejoices in the truth 
and watches for it as they that watch for the 
morning. Such a man, open in his total nature 
to all truth from the lowest to the highest, will 
be indeed reverently open to the God of truth. 
A great aspect that is not emphasised enough 
I wish particularly to magnify. God would 
produce a personality open on all sides to Beauty. 
How God must love beauty! He has made earth 
and sea and sky beautiful. The grasses, the 



What God is Working Toward i8i 

flowers, and the trees ; the valleys, the mountains, 
the hills, and the plains; the brooks, the rivers, 
and the sweet lakes; the islands, the oceans, 
and the waves; the clouds, the atmosphere, 
the light, the stars — almost everything in heaven 
and earth He has made beautiful. The animals 
and the insects and the birds are beautiful; the 
little child is beautiful ; the maiden in her bloom 
is more beautiful; the mother with her babe is 
yet more beautiful ; and the aged mother in Israel, 
with God in her ripened so\A and His sweet grace 
in her countenance, is more beautiful still. And 
what is all this beauty for? That man should 
close his eyes and deaden his soul to it? Has it 
not a ministry? Is it not prophetic? Does it 
not tell of the possible flowering and beauty of 
human character, and subtly minister to that 
high result? 

But this is only the beginning of beauty. There 
is also the beauty of law and order pervading 
nature everywhere like some fine intelligence; 
and there is the higher beauty of the world of 
manifold truth, finer and purer; and the yet higher 
spiritual beauty of holiness, the costly glories of 
character; and raised above them like the stars 
in the sky the perfect beauty of the divine ideals 
in which the true, the beautiful, and the good 
have united in one supernal radiance. And high 
over all there is the transcendent beauty and 
glory of God, fount and source of all other beauty, 



1 82 God and Man 

the divine beauty and glory of perfect holiness 
and love. And what woiild God have? What 
wotild He produce? He would produce a hu- 
man being on w^hom he should not waste a uni- 
verse of beauty. The sphere of nature, the 
realm of cosmic law and order, the world of 
truth, the kingdom of character, the heaven of 
ideals,' — ^to the beauty of all these He would 
have man perfectly open. That lute of three 
thousand strings, the human ear, that "most 
pure spirit of sense," the eye, the fathomless 
heart of man, the magisterial mind, the mysteri- 
ous soul, — He would have them as open to beauty 
everywhere as the welcoming eye is to light. 
Especially and pre-eminently would He have 
him alive and not dead to that supreme Beauty 
and Glory that is back of all. 

God would develop a being, moreover, wide- 
open to the heaven of divine Ideals. How early 
and how naturally a life opens to ideals. It is 
impossible for the awaking of the sentiments or 
the awaking of the intellect or the awaking of the 
soul to take place, without awaking to the world 
of ideals. And in all healthy lives this takes 
place early. Morning does not come at noon. 
It is with a normal life as it is with an apple-tree. 
The perfect fruit grows and ripens through many 
and many a day, but the apple blossoms that 
are the promise of the fruit, open wide their 
bosoms to heaven early in nature's springtime. 



What God is Working Toward 183 

And the ideals are as numerous as the stars in 
the sky. There is an ideal for every activity 
of man. The Indian chief would be a perfect 
chieftain and the warrior a perfect warrior; the 
yachtsman would be a perfect sailor and the 
tennis-player play the faultless game; the farmer 
would carry on the ideal farm and the carpenter 
would build the perfect house ; the teacher would 
have the ideal school and the lawyer make the 
perfect plea and the artist paint the perfect pic- 
ture and the poet write the great and perfect 
poem. From the noble labourer who digs his 
honest ditch, up to Dante who writes his Divine 
Comedy; from the little boy who says, Look, see 
me play ball, up to Edwin Booth who plays the 
involved and baffling Hamlet; from the bashful 
youth who strives to possess his two hands and 
feet and not be painfully awkward, to the courtly 
Sir Philip Sidney; or from our fierce Teutonic 
ancestors who buried the adulterer alive, up to the 
saint on the mountain top wrestling for divine 
experience and the perfect life, each and every 
endeavour of man takes place under the power 
of an ideal. All aspiration looks up and follows 
the gleam. And it is a notable thing that it 
always aims at the perfect. The hunter aims 
at the perfect shot, the wrestler at the perfect 
skill, the singer at the perfect expression, the 
sculptor at the perfect statue. No true effort 
consciously aims at the imperfect. The Indian 



i84 God and Man 

who built his canoe was aiming at the perfect 
canoe as triily as Paul was aiming at the perfect 
man. It is not strange consequently that Jesus 
said: Ye therefore shall be perfect as your 
heavenly Father is perfect. The ideal pervades 
all life everywhere and all true activity is forever 
aiming at the perfect. Jesus would have man 
do on the highest plane consciously and continu- 
ously and richly, what he is doing on all lower 
planes, generally half consciously and intermit- 
tently and poorly. On the spiritual plane He 
would have him open to the absolute Ideal. 

Further, it is characteristic of ideals that they 
appeal to all that is in us. They appeal to the 
intellect no less than to the feelings, and to the 
will no less than to the intellect. An ideal is a 
thing at once to be known, to be appreciated, 
and to be striven for. And what is just as im- 
portant, they appeal to all sides of us equally 
and harmoniously. It is a sign indeed of the 
supremacy of ideals that they thus appeal to 
\)ur total nature and to all sides alike. If we 
Were right in saying that the ideal unites within 
its radiant being the true, the beautiful, and the 
good, then the foregoing is what we should expect. 
And herewith is implied the superior character 
and rank of ideals. We naturally think of the 
supernal stars when we think of the higher ideals. 
And rightly; for ideals constitute the supernal 
heavens of reality, next to the transcendent 



What God is Working Toward 185 

divine Reality itself. And God would have man 
open eagerly and perfectly to this heaven of 
ideals. He would produce a symmetrical life, 
open alike in its clear intellect, its appreciative 
heart, and its devoted spirit. And through the 
shining ideals He would have man forever see 
streaming light and life from the great divine 
Source. 

Thus God would produce a harmonious and 
complete man, open wide to the heaven of ideals 
to which he so early and naturally turns, which 
in itself is as rich and varied as the variety of 
his human activities, which appeals at once to 
every essential side of his nature, and which 
itself is a most pure and supernal realm of Reality 
through which the divine Light forever streams. 

Finally God would create a being open wide 
to Himself, spirit to infinite Spirit. It is a com- 
mon experience that in the midst of the solemn 
grandeur of the mountains, or gazing out over 
the mysterious vastness of the ocean, or looking 
up into the glory of the midnight sky, we want 
to pray. Those who open themselves deeply 
to nature feel this deeply. What does it mean? 
It means that we want to open our deepest being 
to the deepest Reality, want to open our human 
spirit to the infinite Spirit, to come into immediate 
communion with God. The same thing is true 
of all our deepest relations to humanity. Who 
that opened himself profoundly to the utterance 



i86 God and Man 

of Phillips Brooks's deep nature did not want to 
go and pray? The same is true when we open 
ourselves deeply to the world of law and order, 
or to the world of truth, or to the world of beauty, 
or to the world of ideals. In the deepest com- 
munion with God's worlds everywhere we are 
moved to pray. Even undeveloped men feel 
the deep stir to a degree. In those sacred mo- 
ments when we are really face-to-face with God's 
worlds we want to come face-to-face with God. 
When we have come into spiritual relationship to 
His universe, we want to come into spiritual 
relationship to Him. And we are not satisfied 
until we thus spiritually touch. We want im- 
mediate commerce. We want direct communion. 
Just as we are not satisfied until we come into 
first-hand relationship with nature. No report 
about nature will answer. No picture will suffice. 
We must see with our own eyes and feel direct 
original contact. Immediate commerce with hu- 
man life, original relationship with the world 
of truth or the world of beauty, unmediated 
communion with any world, is the only thing 
that will satisfy. Man must go direct to the 
great sources. His spirit must drink immediately 
from all the great fountains. Even so he must 
know God with immediacy of experience and 
drink for himself direct at the everlasting Foun- 
tainhead. There is profound suggestion here — 
if in the soul's deepest experiences with nature 



What God is Working Toward 187 

and humanity and the divine order and the worlds 
of truth and beauty and ideals, we want to pray. 
Certain it is that centre feels for Centre, spirit 
would open to Spirit. 

This is the highest and truest stage of human 
development. When man as spirit opens to God 
as Spirit there is nothing higher. We can not 
conceive anything beyond. He is standing on 
the mountain summit where heaven and earth 
meet. In such spiritual immediacy the child 
directly knows and communes with the Father, 

Now this is what the deepest religions and the 
greatest prophets from of old have pointed to- 
ward. And this is what our profoundest being 
ever has craved. Man has dreamed of a spiritual 
mountain-top where the human and the Divine 
came together. And this dream of direct com- 
munion he would never let die. It is the dream 
of dreams. But precisely this it is that is open 
to the deepest skepticism, both theoretical and 
practical. Man doubts. It is difficult to believe 
in the greatest things. It is so hard really to 
have faith in the highest visions. Let me believe, 
we say, in nature and humanity and the moral 
order and truth and beauty and ideals and in 
indirect communion, but do not bid me believe 
in direct communion and spiritual immediacy. 
It is the cry of weakness, but a most natural 
weakness. The highest and greatest things are 
always the most exposed to doubt. The mists 



1 88 God and Man 

gather most readily about the loftiest mountain 
summits, not about the ordinary hilltops. The 
most difficult thing in the world is really to 
believe in the supreme vision. Nevertheless this 
is what must be steadfastly affirmed. The pos- 
sibility of an open and clear sky between the 
soul and God must be proclaimed to the ends of 
the earth. Granted that it is difficult really to 
worship in spirit and truth, to open spirit to 
Spirit. But when was it ever promised that the 
supreme thing should be easy? This moreover 
is what Christ in His great personality exempli- 
fied, and what He proclaimed for humanity. 
This also is what Christianity richly attained unto 
in the Upper Room. And this finally is what God 
Himself is ever striving to lead mankind up to 
through all its communions with nature and the 
divine order and the worlds of truth, beauty, and 
ideals. God would create a being open wide to 
Himself, spirit to infinite Spirit. 

So God would have man open to all spheres of 
Reality. If we could set man in thought into 
all worlds as we see him set into nature, open and 
receptive to the higher as to the lower, we should 
see then the first half of what God intends. For 
He would have a life first of all universally open 
and receptive. He would have it as receptive to 
all nature as the lungs to atmosphere, as open to 
humanity as the babe to its mother, as sensitive 
to moral law as to physical, as open to truth as 



What God is Working Toward 189 

the eye to light, as receptive to beauty as the 
heart to love, as hospitable to ideals as the night 
to stars, and as open and receptive to God as the 
world to springtime. See a tree open in its roots 
to the lower earth, in its leaves to the higher 
atmosphere, and in its whole being to heaven's 
rains and sunlights : so God would have man wide 
open to Heaven and earth. The first half then 
of what God intends is that man shall become 
universally and perpetually open and receptive. 

And this receptivity shall be of so rich and 
complete a character that man shall become an 
ever more and more perfect medium and agency 
of Divinity. God would pour His life not only 
into but also through humanity. He would 
have "free course" in our human life. But of 
this great side of the truth we shall hear more 
later. 

The second half of what God intends is that 
man shall become a universally and perpetually 
active centre of life. He shall react toward the 
Universe. Receptivity is to the end of activity. 
Man shall respond to all worlds. What has been 
said as to his rich receptivities in every direction 
must be duplicated in thought about his activities 
in all directions. Suffice it that the complete 
man must be multitudinous in his activities. 
He must co-work with all nature, work together 
with humanity, obey universal law, be the apostle 
of all truth, a worshipper of beauty everywhere, 



igo God and Man 

an unwearying pursuer of the ideal, and the 
co-worker with God on every plane. 

It is best to think of higher worlds after God's 
own lower analogue. When the farmer scatters 
the seed, he co-works with vast and limitless 
nature. Likewise, when man co-works with higher 
worlds, he is co-operant as truly with infinite 
systems of Reality. When you set man into any 
world, it is as though you set a star against the 
infinite background of the sky. The humblest 
child with its little feet stands upon the whole 
world, and so doing, stands upon the Universe. 
After this fashion are we to think of man in all 
his great receptivities and co-operant activities. 

This now is what we have come to. God 
would develop a centre of life, on the one side 
universally and perpetually receptive, on the 
other side universally and perpetually active. 
He would have all worlds pour their life into man, 
• — ^boundless nature, mothering humanity, cosmic 
and higher law, universal truth, the realms of 
beauty, the heaven of ideals, the infinite divine 
Life itself. And man, for his part. He would 
have equally rich in his responsive and co-operant 
activities. In this way justice would be done 
both to the individual and to the Environment. 
The vast Environment would have its great story 
told. And the individual would realise himself 
by thus being the focus and centre of a myriad 
receptivities and countervailing activities. Na- 



What God is Working Toward 191 

ture woiild be but the lower ranges of the infinite 
ascending heights of Reality. All realms from the 
lowest to the highest of the infinite Environment 
would report themselves in man. And man for 
his part would actively receive their reports, and 
in turn send back a unique account of himself 
in ten thousand intenser activities of response. 
Most of all would God have the higher worlds 
mirrored in man's life, and man thereunto pre- 
eminently responsive — as a tree is specially 
responsive to the mothering heavens in spring, 
and so answers back with the glory of its blossoms. 
Thus God would have man a citizen of all worlds, 
but because he is man, most naturally at home 
in the higher. 

It is good to endeavour to see both the simplicity 
and the vast reach of what we have considered. 
Man, on the one side, is receptive; on the other 
side, active. We may draw, with science, the line 
of the sunbeam to the mirror, and see it thrown 
back again in the line of reflection. So we may 
draw ten thousand lines of influence from the 
physical environment to the life of man and then 
see him send back his myriad lines of response. 
In this way all that is true in the new evolutionary 
teaching, with its strong emphasis on environ- 
ment, may be freely and gladly recognised. But 
we must also draw ten-thousand lines of influence 
from the affectional, the intellectual, and the 
spiritual environment of humanity to the indi- 



192 God and Man 

vidual ; and draw myriads of other lines from the 
vast moral order of the Universe to the life of man ; 
with unnumbered other lines from the worlds of 
truth to the circle of his life ; and lines from all 
the realms of beauty to the human soul; not 
leaving out the starry sky of ideals that is ever 
over him and sending down its countless rays 
of influence, nor forgetting the infinite beams 
of the God who is Light. And we must see a 
great and complete man sending back myriad 
lines of response. Then have we seen the Environ- 
ment indeed and not merely the lower margins of 
it. Then have we beheld the great Environment 
at work. And then only have we proclaimed 
a doctrine of environment that is adequate. 
Then also have we seen man in the lofty trunk 
and tree-top of his being, and not merely in his 
lower roots. Then have we seen him alive indeed 
in all the higher ranges of his powers. And then 
have we set forth a doctrine of freedom that alone 
is large and fit. See the total Environment, 
from nature to infinite Spirit, pouring its streams 
into man, and see a great and complete man send- 
ing back his fit and majestic response, and then, 
but not before, have we come to whole views of 
life. From the lowest reaction of the body to 
physical stimuli, up to the highest response of 
the soul to God, is truly a vast range. 

Plainly here is a picture that does justice to all 
that is true in physiology, or in the new evolution- 



What God is Working Toward 193 

ary teaching with its doctrine of environment, 
or in the new biology or the new psychology. 
It does justice besides to that great diremption 
of the Universe into the "ego" and the "non-ego," 
and to the whole sensory and the whole motor 
side of man. It finds, moreover, in the sensory- 
motor system the principle, taken broadly, of 
all possible human life. For what could connect 
a life with a lower environment that is forever 
acting upon it but a sensory system? And what 
again could connect a life that is forever reacting 
thereupon but a motor system? We have there- 
fore in the afferent and the efferent nerves, 
joined together in the ganglionic centres, the 
suggestive principle of all human life. All living 
is a perpetual intaldng and a perpetual outgiving. 
It may well be that in the higher ranges the tele- 
graphic wires indeed may be dispensed with, 
and the wireless messages come through the 
trackless air. But come they must, and the 
messages and inspirations must be responded to, 
or life is not life. 

A centre of life, on the one side universally 
and perpetually receptive, on the other side 
universally and perpetually active, open in recep- 
tivity to all worlds, co-operant in activity with 
all worlds, — ^this then is what God is seeking to 
produce. 

Receptivity and activity, but both of superior 
order. Everything indeed is the medium of 
13 



194 God and Man 

God. He pours Himself into and through all 
things. But human-kind He would have as His 
supreme medium and agency here below. Into 
man He would pour not only His power but also 
His truth and wisdom and love and spirit and 
life. He would have humanity the manifestation 
point of the divine life and character as the arc- 
light is the manifestation point of the electricity 
of the world. Here is receptivity certainly of 
transcendent order. To be a medium and agency 
of the divine life and character and activity; 
to be brooded and inspired by God; to be shone 
through and spoken through and loved through 
and wrought through; and to be flowed through 
by all the streams of natiire that rise in the Foun- 
tainhead of the infinite Life, is wide-ranging 
receptivity indeed. But this is man. This is 
God's idea of man. To have a life universally 
and perpetually open, with a receptivity so per- 
fect that it becomes a surpassing medium and 
agency of Divinity, this is to fulfil God's thought 
of man. A closed and impervious human life 
is a monstrosity. 

Similarly God would have man's activity of a 
supreme kind. He would produce a centre of 
life whose activity was of so high a type and so 
perfect a character that it could become parent- 
hood of humanity. In the natural order of life 
the child becomes parent. The receiver gives. 
The produced reproduces. The mothered and 



What God is Working Toward 195 

fathered in tiirn fathers or mothers. Rich recep- 
tivity passes into rich activity; for there is no 
activity so great and complete as perfect parent- 
hood. In this most common but most wonderful 
fact is laid down, I venture to say, the plan and 
true progression of all human life. Parenthood, 
not merely physical parenthood, but moral parent- 
hood and intellectual parenthood and spiritual 
parenthood as well and chiefly: parenthood, not 
merely of our private family, but moral and intel- 
lectual and spiritual parenthood of humanity 
also and mainly, — ^this is the parenthood that 
we mean. This is the true idea of parenthood. 
To be a father or mother in Israel, to be a parent 
of humanity, to come to the unbounded mother 
heart, the unlimited father spirit, to be a universal 
parent, — ^this is what parenthood means. And to 
develop from full rich childhood to rich complete 
parenthood of this character is to pass through 
the divinely intended human progression. Here 
is activity in its completed stage. Action that 
stops short of this is an arrested development. 
Parenthood of humanity — how shall we find 
terms large enough to match the truth of the idea. 
Ever3rwhere to father and mother our human- 
kind ; to be an affectional, an intellectual, and a 
spiritual parent of every life that comes within 
our touch, this is the most complex and complete 
activity that takes place on the earth. To be 
a parent of the higher life of the world, — there 



196 God and Man 

is nothing so expansive, nothing so aboundingly 
active, nothing so unselfish, so overflowing, so 
creative, so magnificent as this anywhere. In 
this man shows likest God. 

And what is it to pass through this great pro- 
gression? It is to spring like a bud from the par- 
ent stock. It is to be mothered into being and 
into birth. It is to be nourished and cherished 
and brooded into adulthood. It is then to send 
off buds from our own being. It is to parent 
body. It is to mother heart and bring affections 
to the birth. It is to parent nascent mind and 
mother it into being and into flower. It is to 
parent formative spirit and awake it into life 
and unfold it into splendoiir. And it is to do 
this on the higher planes for our human kind in 
general. To develop from perfect receptivity 
thus into perfect activity; to pass from being 
endlessly parented into such parenthood without 
limit, is to unfold through the great human stages 
of growth. 

From childhood to parenthood of humanity, 
this is the true evolution of man. What takes 
place in the cottager's home, if he be worthy, 
sketches already the plan of the ages. And what 
takes place on the lowest plane typifies what 
takes place on the highest. Even physical par- 
enthood symbolises the highest spiritual. Jesus 
saw His perfect spiritual parenting of the souls 
of men typified even in the hen that gathered 



What God is Working Toward 197 

her brood under her wings. It is suggestive 
beyond measure to see the plan of the highest 
sketched in the lowest. It links the Kingdom 
of Heaven with the cradle of the home and even 
with the nest of the bird. The most ideal life 
that ever has graced the circles of men was but a 
rich fulfilment of what was already outlined in 
the humblest life. The deep insight of Socrates 
did not fail to see that his own parenting of the 
intellectual and moral and spiritual lives of men 
was like unto the work of the midwife. It is the 
divine intention that all the larger, richer, ma- 
turer life of the world shall forever give itself to 
the littler, poorer, cruder life. Humanity shall 
forever parent humanity. 

Perfect receptivity and perfect activity ; on the 
one side perfect and perpetual childhood toward 
God, on the other side perfect and perpetual 
parenthood toward humanity; this is the com- 
plete receptivity and the crowning activity for 
man that God intends. Hereby man shall forever 
keep his childhood, receptivity, and humility. 
Hereby also he shall surely attain unto manhood, 
full activity, and growing worth. It is a sublime 
unfolding to become a child of God. It is an 
immense and glorious evolution to become a 
rich parent of humanity. 

In attaining unto such activity and parent- 
hood man becomes, under God, a creator. He 
is co-creator of his human-kind and of his own 



198 God and Man 

higher being. To be in any sense a creator is 
great. To be in this way a co-creator, under God, 
is consummate. 

A universally and perpetually receptive centre 
of life, with receptivity so perfect that it shall 
become medium and agency of Divinity; a uni- 
versally and perpetually active centre of life, 
with activity so complete that it shall become 
parenthood of humanity and co-creatorship with 
Deity, — this, as we have seen, is what God is 
seeking to produce. 

And the centre of life that He intends shall 
be of so rich and complex a character that it 
shall be a wide-ranging htiman personality, of 
so high an order that it shall be a child of God, 
and so a complete man. What is meant by a 
wide-ranging personality is, of course, a life wide 
open to all Reality, from nature up to God, 
developed in all its ranges, from body up to 
spirit. 

A high complex centre of life, a parent of human- 
ity, a child of God and so a complete man, — 
this, in fine, is what God would make. 

To that end He seeks to develop a self that 
He may develop a socius; an adult that He may 
develop a parent; a particular that He may de- 
velop a universal; an individual that He may 
develop a person. 

Hitherto we have described in general outline 



What God is Working Toward 199 

and in large terms what God would produce. 
We have sketched man first in relation to the 
whole kingdom of life ; next in his relation to the 
World-All as a receiver and to the same as an 
actor ; then in his relation to God on the one side 
and to humanity on the other; and finally we 
glanced at his own central being. Now, however, 
we must give sharp and specific heed to the order 
of progression, to the evolution of personality. 
God does not make a person with one stamp 
of a die. There is a great double process. He 
produces a self, an adult, a particular, an individ- 
ual, first, that He may develop a socius, a parent, 
a universal, a personality, at last. It is of the 
utmost importance to know and mark the process. 
He would produce first a separate centre of life, 
an individual consciousness, an awareness of 
selfhood, a potentiality of Will. He would then 
have such an adult life give itself absolutely to 
the All, pouring itself forth in new being a,nd life, 
reproducing and parenting human-kind in the 
most comprehensive and ceaseless manner, and 
thereby itself developing into full personality. 
It is needless to say that the two stages are not, 
in all respects, as temporally and essentially 
distinct as is here roundly stated. That said, 
at once let us re-emphasise and appreciate the 
two stages. Out from the All, God would gradu- 
ally separate a little life and unfold it into relative 
independence and develop it into distinctive 



200 God and Man 

selfhood. And then again in a higher form He 
wotdd re- unite that same Hf e to the All in a spiritual 
union through the perfect consecration of its own 
free individuality. It is as though the sun flung 
off from its own fiery being a planet and imparted 
to it the essential elements and powers that would 
transform it into an ordered world; and then as 
though that same world, when it came to itself, 
bound itself back again through the co-operation 
of its own power with that of the sun, found its 
appointed orbit and in glad obedience forever 
kept it, opened the wide bosom of its continents 
to the mysterious and mighty call of the sunbeams, 
and answered back thereto with the miracle of 
a thousand springtimes as it went singing on its 
way. 

What God does in the human world He does, 
in a way, in all the biological realms. He makes 
even the cell develop to a certain point before 
He has it give part of its being back to the world 
of life, producing a new cell by fission. The 
grasses and trees do not flower and bring forth 
seed on the first morning of their existence. 
Reproduction is the crowning stage in all animal 
forms. And the higher we ascend in the scale 
of life, the more prolonged is the period of child- 
hood and the more delayed and marked is the 
evolution of parenthood. 

As we have seen, God would develop a self 
that He may develop a socius, an adult that He 



What God is Working Toward 201 

may develop a parent, a particular that He may 
develop a universal, an individual that He may 
develop a person; thereby producing the complete 
man. It will be noted that through all this runs 
the idea, first, of the progressive separation of a 
human life from the parenting World- All, and 
the development of it into a relatively independent 
and free spiritual being; then throughout runs 
the idea of the progressive re-uniting of this free 
life to the All in a higher spiritual alliance. And 
only in the second great stage of the making of 
a man is personality realised. These stages of 
development we look upon as absolutely essen- 
tial and fundamental. The child must be born, 
and must be parented into adulthood. The adult 
must then unite himself in marriage with his kind, 
reproduce his own humanity, and parent lesser 
lives without end. And this before he can repeat 
in his own life the wide and noble parenthood 
that gave him being, or at all measure up to the 
true idea of a human life. What is here sketched 
in principle, muist of course be lifted up in idea 
to all the higher planes and there realised in a 
splendid spiritual personality. Man's everlasting 
childhood toward God must be achieved, and 
his ceaseless and comprehensive parenthood to- 
ward all littler lives must be richly realised. It 
need hardly be said that the true idea of parent- 
hood comprehends far more aflectional and intel- 
lectual and spiritual parenthood than bodily, 



202 God and Man 

far more the universal parental spirit than the 
particular physical motherhood and fatherhood. 
Although even physical parenthood is in no way 
to be belittled but in every way ideally to be 
glorified. And it is glorified when it is fulfilled 
as God intends in the other higher and nobler 
parenthoods that follow. 

Here then is the man that God would make, 
and here are the stages of the continuous creation 
whereby He would produce him. In a word, 
God, the ensphering Universal, would produce a 
particular which in turn shall become, in its de- 
gree, an ensphering producing universal; thereby 
becoming both a child of God and a complete man. 

But why is it necessary to go through the two 
stages? Why is it necessary to develop the self 
first? Without the individual self there can be 
no high complex centre of life, no socius, no parent, 
no human personality. In a being that starts 
from the zero of unconsciousness, and develops 
into a conscious life, and then into a richly active 
part of a Universe, co-acting with a Universe 
all the time, there must be, in the interior nature 
and necessary evolution of such a being, the 
development first of all of an individual self. 
One has only to follow with faithful insight the 
course of such a being to see that, in the very fact 
and idea of a human life, there must be such a 
development. You must get your world before 
it can respond with harvests. You must light 



What God is Working Toward 203 

your fire before it can drive your engine. We 
must come to conscious selfhood, before we can 
function as conscious selves. The soldiers must 
be there before they can give themselves in heroic 
life or death for their country. You must get 
your scholars before they can devote themselves 
in humility and singleness to science, like an 
Agassiz. We must have men and women before 
we can have fathers and mothers even in the 
narrow sense, not to speak of such parenthood 
as we have had in mind. Differentiation into 
adulthood, individuality first, personality second. 
For personality is achieved only when the individ- 
ual self devotes that self to God and man, thereby 
coming into higher union with the All and thereby 
attaining unto a kind of universal life. This we 
shall see must be dwelt upon extensively later. 

Here is the everlasting strength and justifica- 
tion of all individualistic doctrine. And here 
also is its incompleteness. For the human being 
must be differentiated into a distinct ego, into 
an individual consciousness, into a centre of life 
and will,' — it must come to selfhood, or it is noth- 
ing. The more of an individual indeed, the 
more of a possible personality. They are per- 
fectly right who contend for individualism as 
for something inestimable. The might and tenac- 
ity of selfishness itself has a certain deep justifica- 
tion. If the choice were between individualism 
and something less and lower, there could not 



204 God and Man 

be a moment's hesitation. Rightly viewed, indi- 
vidualism may be said to be even a splendid 
achievement. It marks a vast advance over 
that childhood of the race in which human lives 
were not sufficiently developed to become sharply 
defined. There was then a nebulous mass, but 
there were no stars. The choice however is not 
between individualism and something less and 
lower, but between individualism and something 
more and vastly higher. The positive content 
that individualists contend so sturdily for is 
indeed a priceless treasure. It is the first grand 
stage in the making of men. It is as indispensable 
to a Pauline character as a foundation to a cathe- 
dral. Without the pronounced ego, there is no 
splendid personality possible. Here is why God 
must develop a self, a particular, an individual, 
first. The tree must be, before it can bloom and 
be glorified. 

It is clear that we must have the differentiated 
self. But why must we have more? Why is 
not the individual self sufficient? Here is where 
the battle royal comes. Many in a manner seem 
to say that that is sufficient. And untold multi- 
tudes act as though it were sufficient. But we 
must have more. Given the individual ego, we 
have, it is true, a great start ; but in reality the 
making of a person is only splendidly begun. 
God must consecrate the individual self before 
He can make the high complex centre of life 



What God is Working Toward 205 

richly receptive and richly active. He must 
consecrate the individual self before He can 
develop the true socius or parent or universal 
or human personality. He must perfectly con- 
secrate the individual before He can make a 
child of God, and so a complete man. The 
concept of a high complex centre of life is that 
of a being who consciously, freely, and joyously 
opens himself to all worlds in receptivity, and 
who, with the same conscious freedom and joy, 
opens himself toward all worlds in activity. 
And such a being can be produced only through 
perfect consecration. Neither receptivity of this 
lofty kind, nor activity of this character, can be 
produced in any other way. Only the perfectly 
consecrated life can become the perfect medium 
and agency of God. The life that does not give 
can not receive. The river of God must have 
an outlet. Equally manifest is it that a true 
socius or parent or universal can be produced in 
no other way. In the structure and nature of 
the idea, that is implied. An undevoted friend- 
ship or parenthood is a contradiction in terms. 
And the universal or personal life is precisely 
the high achievement or development itself, 
that results from noble consecration. 

Thus if we view God as seeking to produce a 
high representative of Himself in the world, a 
child of God, a complete man, we see at once that 
He can do so in no other way. First He must 



2o6 God and Man 

create an individual self, and then He must inspire 
that free individual joyously to devote himself 
in noble consecration. And if we pass from in- 
sight to history, we see again that this is the way 
God actually does make men. It is the story 
of all the noble life of the world. It is the process 
of evolving human personality. But we must 
go into this fundamental process much farther 
as we progress. 

In conclusion let us answer again the question of 
this chapter as to what God is seeking to produce, 
in the words that we set upon its first page. God 
is seeking to do on the higher human plane what 
He has done on the lower planes of life, vegetal 
and animal, only He is seeking a result of far 
superior type : He is seeking to produce a centre 
of life, but a centre of high complex order. He 
is seeking to produce a universally and perpetually 
receptive centre of life; a being whose receptivity 
is so perfect that he shall become medium and 
agency of Divinity. He is seeking to produce a 
universally and perpetually active centre of 
life; a being with activity so high that he shall 
become parent of humanity and co-creator with 
Deity. He is seeking to produce a centre of 
high complex life, with nature so varied and com- 
prehensive that it shall be a wide-ranging human 
personality; of so high an order that it shall be 
an expression and child of God. Thus He is 
seeking to make the complete man. Or, in a 



What God is Working Toward 207 

word, God, the ensphering Universal, would 
produce a particular which, in turn, shall become, 
in its degree, an ensphering producing universal ; 
thereby becoming both a fiill-grown child of God 
and a complete man. 



CHAPTER IX 

WHAT MAN IS WORKING TOWARD 

IN the preceding chapter we saw in broad surveys 
what God is working toward. In the present 
chapter we must see what man is working toward. 
There we looked at things from the divine side. 
Here we shall look at things from the human 
side. We have the same great facts before us of 
necessity in both cases, for God and man are 
working toward the same end. Only now we 
must look indeed more penetratingly into those 
broad outlines. 

What is the true quest of man ? When he comes 
to himself, what does he work toward? He 
seeks to develop from self-consciousness into con- 
sciousness of the All; from self-relationship into 
relationship to the All ; and from self-service into 
service of the All. That is, he seeks to develop 
from a particular into a universal, to attain unto 
the higher, larger life. 

Here, for example, is a normal young life of 
twenty, standing forth in fine physical proportions. 
He has come to a rich consciousness of himself. 
He is aware of himself as a will. He is conscious 

208 



What Man is Working Toward 209 

of power. The self is vivid and intimate and 
endlessly interesting. The ego is in the bright 
centre of the conscious field. He is supremely 
conscious of himself. Beyond, are all humanity 
and the great world and the vast frame of things 
and the infinite God. But he is less conscious of 
them. They are present in his instincts and 
feelings. They are over him and around, it is 
true, and in him all the time. They are indeed 
implicated in all his being. But they are not in 
the focus of interest. He is at that stage when 
he is supremely aware of the self. With such 
a young life of promise standing out before us, 
what shall we say that he is intended in his nature 
to progress toward? What is the true goal of 
his development, his true evolution? The true 
course and goal of his life is progress from self- 
consciousness to God-consciousness, with all that 
that implies. He has waked up; he has found 
himself; he has himself on his hands. His pro- 
blem now is how to get rid of himself. How 
shall he lose himself, get rid of his self-conscious- 
ness, pass beyond it to something higher? 

He must turn and deliberately face the great 
World- All of which he is a part. He must shift 
the centre of his interest. He must realise the 
great divine Environment. The World-All, as 
we have said, has been present in his consciousness 
to a degree all the time. Without it, without 
a certain awareness of the not-self, he never could 



2IO God and Man 

have come to such high self-consciousness at 
all. But now he must pass beyond this to a 
higher objective consciousness. And it is through 
his high self-consciousness that he is able to do 
this, that he is able to advance to a higher objective 
consciousness that shall become permanent. In 
childhood, he had a naive objective consciousness, 
while the subjective was most vague. In youth, 
he developed a high subjective consciousness, 
with the objective less prominent. In manhood, 
he shall advance to the higher objective conscious- 
ness that shall be permanent, while the subjective 
shall not indeed disappear, but shall be subli- 
mated rather and fulfilled, and life shall come 
to a higher unity. In fine, he must turn and 
deliberately face the great World- All, as we have 
said. He must know life's great Backgrounds. 
He must become adequately aware of the vast 
divine Environment. In a word, he must know 
God, And knowing God with a great God- 
consciousness, he must relate himself richly and 
freely to God and to all His worlds: thus shift- 
ing his interest, and becoming God-centred, 
and entering into a new and higher union with 
God, into a rich and free spiritual life. 

The supreme question for such a young life, 
as for every normal human life, as he stands face- 
to-face with God and all His worlds, is: What 
will he do with himself? Will he devote himself? 
Will he ally himself with all worlds? Will he 



What Man is Working Toward 211 

use himself for God and man? That supreme 
question includes all others. The answer to it 
is in principle the answer to all. For this cause 
was he brought into the world. For this cause 
was he brought face-to-face with himself. Indeed 
he was brought face-to-face with himself to 
the great end that he might be brought face-to- 
face with God. He was revealed to himself 
in order that he might become alive to God. A 
great consciousness of the divine Environment, 
a great God-consciousness, a great new life with 
God — ^this is the meaning of his human life. 
Here worlds of significance may be locked 
up in a single word. In these high concerns it is 
not possible for language to utter the boundless 
truth. For a human being to change his centre, 
for him to pass from self-consciousness to God- 
consciousness, and from self-service to self- 
consecration, is like passing from his egoistic 
prison-house out into the great and spacious 
world of life. It is like an eagle, leaving the nest 
where he got his being and came to himself, and 
soaring out upon the wide kingdom of the air. 
It is to turn one's human telescope toward the 
heavens, to develop from a Ptolymaist into a 
Copernican, to discover the infinite Universe 
to which one really belongs. Then he will no 
longer merely revolve, like a little planet, upon 
his own private axis, but will discover his true 
orbit about the central life of God, fling himself 



212 God and Man 

eagerly out upon it, and determine forever to 
fulfil himself in light and law and love. No 
longer then, in the light of this new heavenly- 
vision, will he seek to make the infinite Universe 
revolve about himself, but instead will rejoice 
to know that he has an appointed place therein, 
will count it his glory to find it, and to enter for- 
ever upon that shining path of obedience and 
service. 

This is the grand shifting of centres that should 
take place in every life. This is the great God- 
consciousness to which every self-consciousness 
is intended to lead. If every man was once a 
Ptolymaist, every man should come to be speedily 
and for all time a Copernican. And the change 
will prove no less vast in the kingdom of life 
than it proved in the kingdom of thought. All 
the true greatnesses were then for the first time 
discovered, and all true astronomic science of 
heaven and earth dates therefrom. So will it 
ever be in a human life. Then alone shall he 
discover the true magnitude of the spiritual 
Heavens and his own infinite belongings thereto. 
And then only shall he truly know both himself 
and God. 

How shall we set forth the magnitude of such 
a transformation. Its meaning sweeps out to- 
ward the immensities and the eternities. In it 
man says his everlasting "Yea" to God and his 
everlasting "No" to self. It is his great new 



What Man is Working Toward 213 

birth into infinite higher worlds. For this the 
angels above look down expectant. For this the 
seasons of God wait. Hereunto have all things 
come. To this end has God made man. And 
to this end has He brought him into the world, 
a crown of glory to the whole creation. 

Here is man, fresh from the hand of God, 
magnificent in promise, with prerogative and 
possibilities almost divine. How fearfully and 
wonderfully he is made! God has created him 
in His own image. He has "rounded him to a 
separate self." He has given him an eye that 
looks out into the limitless spaces of light, a mind 
whose "thoughts wander through eternity," 
an imagination that soars toward the infinite 
Ideal, a heart that is forever restless until it 
rests in God. This is man in the promise and 
programme of his being, in the glorious morning 
of youth. What will his fulfilment be? What will 
it be to realise himself in God? What will the 
transformation from selfishness into spirituality 
be like? Jesus called it a new birth of the Spirit. 
And it would seem that no name for it ever has 
been given among men so expressive and so fit. 
As though in Jesus' thought all life shaped and 
grew toward that spiritual natal day. As though 
all creation waited for the revealing of this son of 
God. Or as though, when his slumbering nature 
was touched from above, and the awaking of the 
soul took place, and life became alive to God, as 



214 God and Man 

though man had a new and higher birth and opened 
his eyes upon another and infinite spiritual king- 
dom of ReaHty. And what could be more expres- 
sive of the truth ? Then for the first time he really 
entered upon life. Then for the first time God be- 
came very God to him. Then for the first time 
he really discovered the infinite divine Environ- 
ment to which he belonged. Before, he was like 
Plato's cave-dweller, living in his narrow house, , 
receiving only fragmentary beams from a mysteri- 
ous Universe of light. Now, he has come forth 
into the great world, and his eyes are greeted by the 
boundless spaces of light, and he stands amazed, 
but at home, under an infinite Sky. 

Although we have seen all this in the rich 
colour of beauty, it is Reality that we have been 
looking at. The sun is no less a real sun because 
it is glorious. The earth does not have to be 
wrapped in drabs and greys in order to be real. 
The real world rather is not seen until it is trans- 
figured in light. And the real heavens are shut 
out by Veiling mists, unless their glory is seen. 
We do not see the diamond at all until we see 
it burning in splendoiir. Both the diamond 
and its beauty are hidden, in perfect darkness 
or when covered by thick dust. And the great- 
est and highest things especially are not truly 
seen unless they are seen in their majesty. 

Therefore we do well to strive to behold the 
sublime magnitude of the transformation in man 



What Man is Working Toward 215 

and his life-world, when his soul really sees the 
heavenly vision. And we ought to expect some- 
thing as great and magnificent and amazing, 
certainly, in God's transcendent spiritual King- 
dom as He is showing to the wondering eyes of 
His children every day in His starry skies. In- 
deed eternity is set only in the soul of things, 
and infinity is properly a word of Spirit, while 
perfection has its being only in God. The supreme 
things are found nowhere but in the spiritual 
realm. 

Progress then of the true and normal life is 
from self-consciousness, self-relationship, and self- 
service into consciousness, relationship, and service 
of God; from a partictilar into a universal; from 
an ensphered particular into an ensphering pro- 
ducing universal, — that is, from childhood into 
parenthood; from narrow, meagre, temporal life 
into broad, rich, eternal life, — ^that is, from indi- 
vidualism into personality; and from a child of 
the animal kingdom into a child of the spiritual 
Kingdom, — that is, into a child of God, so into 
a complete man. 

It will be realised that the soul and meaning of 
all this is an unfolding from individualism into 
personality. But why is it so necessary to ad- 
vance beyond individualism? Why must there 
be self-sacrifice? Why must the self be tran- 
scended ? Now we are to close with individualism 
in earnest. 



2i6 God and Man 

First and most fundamental, each human life 
is a part of the World- All and forever will remain 
such. It is part of a family, of humanity, earth, 
solar system, Universe. It was born of parents, 
so never was independent. It sprang as a bud 
out of humanity, hence always was a part thereof. 
It was gathered together out of terrestrial elements 
and every time it opens its mouth for food or 
air, shows that it is still a part of the earth. 
It was quickened by the heat of the sun, as the 
egg is brooded by the mother hen, and every 
time it opens its eyes to the light, it proves that 
it is still a part of the sun, which is both the light 
of its vision and the power by which it opens 
its eyes. And whenever it looks up and sees 
the sky arch over it, it is reminded that it is 
part of the Universe. This is the first and most 
fundamental fact of our human existence, the 
basis and condition of all true philosophising 
about life. We are a part of the great World- All, 
inextricably implicated therewith, woven like 
a thread into the infinite fabric. This absolute 
conditioning fact is, to be sure, implied in all 
our living and instinctively taken for granted 
all the time, but it is rarely considered deeply. 
Few stop to take it in. Few have pondered it 
deliberately. Yet beyond question it is the 
foundation of all that ever will be abidingly 
established touching the philosophy of our human 
life and its potentialities. 



What Man is Working Toward 217 

If a part, then connected and bound. If part 
of a family, then bound by all the laws of family. 
If part of humanity, then connected and bound 
by the natural laws of our common humanity. 
If part of earth and solar system and Universe, 
then bound by all terrestrial and solar and cosmic 
law. If part of higher worlds, if part of an affec- 
tional, an intellectual, and a spiritual realm; 
if heart of the universal Heart, mind of the in- 
finite Mind, and spirit of the eternal Spirit, then 
endlessly connected and bound. In what number- 
less ways and with what various enfolding spheres 
each life is connected, we endeavoured elaborately 
to set forth in the beginning of our task. We 
strove to realise the vast total Environment 
into which a human life is set. And we laboured 
to appreciate how complexly and subtly every 
life is bound up with that manifold Totality. 
Its connection is bewildering in its extent. It 
is the centre of legionary influence. 

If a part of a mighty Whole, the focus of powers 
innumerable, then it must act accordingly; it 
must live in harmony with the great Whole. 
It must obey and serve. It must accord with 
Heaven and earth. It must live in true alliance 
with all the spheres that enfold it. It must be 
the expression of universal law, the utterance 
and agency of God. It must obey physical law, 
or it dies. It must obey the laws of the mind, 
or it goes mad. It must obey moral and spiritual 



21 8 God and Man 

law, or it becomes imbecile or worse. It must 
obey the laws of action, or atrophy falls on all 
the powers. And higher laws must be obeyed as 
absolutely as lower. Nothing is so exacting as 
Heaven. The laws of spirit can no more be 
disregarded than the laws of light. Truth can 
no more be trifled with than the law of gravity. 
Love itself is law, and there is even a "law 
of liberty." And the Kingdom of Heaven can 
never come unless a Will is done. 

No sphere of Reality can be set at nought. 
We can not flout nature or humanity or truth 
or beauty or ideals or Spirit. As well might the 
earth flout the sun or a star the heavens. As 
well might the lungs flout the atmosphere or the 
eye flout light. No fact- world can be ignored. 
Every realm of Reality with which we are con- 
nected must be seriously taken into account. We 
can no more disregard the sun than disregard the 
earth, and no more disregard the Universe than 
the sun. We are part of every sphere, therefore 
we can ignore none. 

It would seem as though science had taught 
this lesson once for all, but she has not. It 
would seem as though, with her majestic emphasis 
upon law and her revelation that every mote of 
matter is intimately connected with the most 
distant nooks of the universe and with the most 
ancient processes of the past, as though she had 
adequately impressed the mind of man with the 



What Man is Working Toward 219 

truth that no fact-world can be ignored. Yet mul- 
titudes live in the main as though that were not 
true, and not a few deliberately. Specially with 
higher Worlds do they seem to think they can 
play fast-and-loose. Men that would not trifle 
with gravitation, trifle with the majesty of truth. 
Men that would not play with fire, lightly dally 
with lust. Women that would purchase beauty 
of complexion at any price, are quite indifferent 
to the supreme beauty of holiness. People that 
send for a physician the instant their bodies fall 
sick, will not hearken and open even to a Saviour 
who stands knocking at the door of their sick 
souls. Yes; many who would not disregard 
an east wind, practically act as though they 
could ignore the whole spiritual Universe and as 
though it mattered little whether they took even 
the infinite God into account at all. Neverthe- 
less, no fact-world can be ignored. Is Truth 
a mighty fact? Is Beauty a boundless fact? 
Is the Ideal a supreme fact? Is Spirit a tran- 
scendent fact? Is God the awful and infinite 
Reality of realities? Then they can not be unre- 
garded without loss incalculable. It not only 
will be, it is now ill for those who virtually ignore. 
It is not and never can be well. Eternal disre- 
gard, if such there be, of supreme and infinite 
Realities means, and must ever mean, endless 
loss. We can not close our eyes without shutting 
out a universe of light. Nor can we shut Heaven 



220 God and Man 

out of oior lives without shutting our lives out 
of Heaven. 

Now all pure selfishness, all consistent individ- 
ualism, when analysed to its bottom, is seen to 
do precisely what we have been thinking of. 
It attempts to set at naught the great kingdoms 
and their august demands. Individualism, when 
consistent, is strictly self-centred. It is occu- 
pied with its own ego. It ignores ever37thing 
outside of its own circle. When it ceases to do 
this, it ceases to be strictly individualistic. Nay ; 
it does more. It not only sets all others at naught, 
but also seeks to subordinate humanity and all 
things beside to its own aggrandisement. It 
would turn heaven and earth, man and God, into 
its servant and slave. It never can succeed. 
The mills of the Universe will grind it to powder 
first. This is why the self must be sacrificed, 
the individualistic ego overcome, the particular 
raised up into the universal. This is the only 
true thing to do with the self. It must not act 
as though it were not a part. It must not attempt 
to unhook its innumerable fastenings. It must 
not try to set at naught the Universe. And it 
must not undertake to subordinate the universe 
and God to its own ego. Rather it must live, 
as a part ever must, in the mutuality and har- 
mony of law. 

The withering interrogation to put to all selfish- 
ness is this: Are you a part? If so, then you 



What Man is Working Toward 221 

are endlessly connected; if so, then endlessly 
bound in the mutuality of law and service. 

If selfishness stopped once and listened to its 
own heart-beat, or noted intelligently its breath 
of life, or sent one thoughtful memory back to 
its mother, or pondered for one moment the two 
hemispheres of sex, or once looked down with 
seeing eyes at the earth, or up with unblinded 
vision into the sky, never more could it be so 
insufferably stupid. Or if but once it stopped 
and asked itself, "Whence this truth that now 
turns my inner darkness into light ? " or, " Whence 
this beauty that fascinates and feeds?" or, 
* ' Whence this ideal that beckons and prophesies ? ' ' 
or, "Whence this inspiration that thrills and 
elevates?" — ^if it stopped to ask even one of these 
questions truly, it would realise that the end of 
selfishness is the beginning of the life of wisdom. 
The basic and fatal fault with selfishness is that 
it is false. It is partial, and when erected into 
a course of life, simply untrue to fact. It ignores 
the mighty Whole of which it is part. And when 
observed closely it is discovered to be self-con- 
tradictory as well. It says by its attitude: 
"I am, and beside me there is no other of worth. " 
And at the same time it seeks to subordinate all 
other persons and things to its own private ends. 
In the same act, it both denies and affirms. 
It says: "You are naught to me"; and at the 
same time, "You are somewhat for my private 



222 God and Man 

gain. " Therein also it shows that its objective 
relationship is perverted. It can not be totally 
unregardful of the not-self, yet it regards it only 
as means. Thereby once more it becomes false. 

It will be realised that we have used selfishness 
and individualism as practically synonymous terms 
— ^and with substantial justice. For individualism 
is emphasis on what is particular, distinctive, 
unique, individualistic, private, partial. And 
selfishness is simply that emphasis erected into 
the sole course and law of life. Individualism, 
without its greater complement, and its great 
corrective, altruism, is unavoidably selfishness. 
And individualism, thus enlarged and fulfilled, 
is no longer pure individualism. Individualism 
as a stage of development is absolutely indispen- 
sable. As a finality it is arrested development, 
and becomes, in a cosmos of mutualities and 
reciprocities, a monstrosity. 

It is with pure and consistent individualism 
as it would be with a player in some great orches- 
tra who, in the midst of the symphony, wilfully 
struck out for himself, utterly disregardful of all 
the other players and parts; nay more, who de- 
liberately strove to subordinate the whole orches- 
tra and theme and leader to his own private 
pipe or harp. Or it is with individualism as it 
would be with a soldier of a great army, who, in 
the day of battle, disloyally broke from the 
ranks and set up a little conflict on his own 



What Man is Working Toward 223 

account, totally ignoring the great army and plan 
of campaign; yes, who even attempted to sub- 
ordinate the whole army and plan and com- 
mandery to his own private whim. Or it is 
with individualism as it would be with a planet 
that arbitrarily broke away from some mighty 
solar system and struck out on its own independ- 
ent track through the uncharted spaces, utterly 
scornful of its true orbit and of all cosmic restraint ; 
yes, that even proposed to set itself up as a new 
centre, to stop the heavens in their course, and 
to constrain the Milky- Way and all things besides 
to circle like a troop of satellites around its own 
little ball. The only result would be that in the 
news of the Universe next morning it would be 
chronicled that "last night another fool-comet 
went out in flame and sowed itself as star-dust 
athwart the heavens." 

Let us resume the argument in this warfare. 
Every human being is a part of a mighty whole. 
Therefore he is endlessly connected. Conse- 
quently he is immeasurably obligated to a life 
of mutuality and reciprocity. Hence he may 
not ignore any fact-world. Much less may he 
try to subordinate the great World- All to his own 
ego. But it is precisely this that individualism 
tries to do. Therefore it becomes selfishness, 
and, like all selfishness, in its double attitude self- 
contradictory and finally abnormal. 

Our life is not only a part but also a minor 



22 4 God and Man 

and dependent part. It is not necessary surely 
that we should enlarge here, important as these 
two truths are. If human life could tie Orion to 
its belt or had the MUky-Way as the tail of its 
kite; if it held some major place among magni- 
tudes, it might essay some egoistic role. Or if we 
were not dependent upon Heaven for life and 
breath and growth and all things, again we might 
attempt some proud and self-centred programme. 
But as well might a whale forsake the ocean, 
with the proud purpose of independence and 
dominion. We are minor and dependent with 
all that those terms import. True we are most 
significant minors and glorious even in our de- 
pendence. At the same time, no individualistic, 
no arbitrary and egoistic life is becoming to such 
as we are. Therefore once more the self must 
die to live. 

Moreover, in relation to God, we are created 
beings and lower in dignity than Deity. If we 
were simply the creatures of our own parents and 
of nothing more ultimate, we should still feel 
the bonds of creaturehood. We should not ignore 
the life that begat or that which bore. Or if 
we were the creations of the earth or of the sun 
or of the molar masses in general, and nothing 
more, we should still feel the bonds of our crea- 
tureship. For that which knows at all must know 
truth and fact. Much more if we are the creations 
of God shall we feel the deep ties of creature- 



What Man is Working Toward 225 

hood. Human-kind has never been able to look 
up toward God and deeply realise the divine 
Creatorship without responding in those filial 
acts that the race has beautifully named piety. 
We feel our creaturehood and we know its impli- 
cates. When the horizon is limited so that the 
vision is mostly that of humanity, the response 
naturally is piety toward parents and ancestor- 
worship. When the horizon is still limited so 
that the vision is mainly that of physical spheres, 
the response of our creatureship is for the most 
part the worship of nature. But when the ho- 
rizon has broadened so that the vision becomes 
that of the divine Creator, the response of the 
creature rises into filial piety toward God the 
Father. The creature acknowledges the Creator in 
every article of his creaturehood. The Universe 
is broad, but there is no room in it for selfishness. 
There is room only for devotion and co-opera- 
tion. There is no place whatever for individual- 
istic selfishness in either a life or a cosmos that 
God alone has created and made. And this is 
what every true and healthy mind instinctively 
feels. And this is what all selfishness virtually 
acknowledges in that it instinctively hides itself 
from the light. 

And when we add to creaturehood the fact 
that, in the order and rank of Reality, our place 
is not that of Deity, we gain a new weapon against 
egoism. We are created at least a "'little lower 

IS 



226 God and Man 

than God." Rather we are oppressed by the 
sense of disparateness than by the sense of likeness. 
The immemorial struggle of saints and prophets 
has been to bring God near. Now what is the 
only true attitude of the lower in the presence of 
the higher, of the human in the presence of the 
Divine? It is reverence, worship, adoration, 
service. Whenever and wherever excellence is 
revealed to consciousness, or holiness is disclosed 
to human eyes, or God shows His glory to man, 
there is only one normal and true attitude. The 
soul that does not bow in the presence of the 
Higher and begin the sacred quest and devote 
itself in high service and joy, is an impossible 
soul. If Moses does not take the sandals off his 
feet in the presence of the Burning Bush, he is not 
worthy of that or of any other high vision. Face- 
to-face with God, there is but one attitude. All 
high things must be hallowed. The inalienable 
right of law, the natural authority of truth, the 
divine sovereignty of beauty, the inherent impera- 
tive of the ideal, the eternal dominion of the 
Divine, this must be felt and owned by every 
normal and worthy life. If there is any life 
that remains unmoved in the presence of excel- 
lence or glory or Divinity, there is nothing to 
say to it. It is sealed with the mark of death. 
For what else is there for a soul that owns any 
kinship with nobility to do in the presence of 
the true, the beautiful, and the good, but to 



What Man is Working Toward 227 

claim them for its eternal sphere and home, and 
become their consecrated disciple and apostle 
forever? "The Lord is in His holy temple, let 
all the earth keep silence before Him." "Holy, 
holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth 
are full of Thy majesty." "Not -unto us, not 
unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory for ever 
and ever!" What other meet and right attitude 
for a soul is there but to be bowed and solemnised 
into worship? But how absolutely all egoism 
or selfish individualism is shut out of true wor- 
ship! "God is Spirit, and they that worship Him 
must worship in spirit and truth, for such doth 
the Father seek to be His worshippers. " Into 
the unity and purity of Spirit, worship must rise. 
Out of separateness into oneness, out of the par- 
ticular into the universal, true worship must 
mount. But this means the overcoming of self, 
the consecration and exaltation of individualism 
into unity of spirit with God. Therefore again 
the self must die to live. 

Up to this point we have realised that our 
human life is a part, therefore must live in har- 
mony with the Whole; that it is a minor part, 
hence must heed the law of the major ; that it is 
a dependent part, consequently must not forget 
the hand that feeds it ; that it is a created part, 
so must remember its creaturehood ; and that it 
is lower than God and accordingly must own and 
claim its true life of reverence and service. From 



228 God and Man 

every side individualism and particularism as a 
law of life is excluded. There is not room for it 
in the Universe. The self must die to live, or it 
lives only to die. 

This when we look at the relation of life to the 
All, But when we turn our eyes and look at 
the life itself, a whole new series of considerations 
come into view. Every human life as such is 
a particular and a universal, a less and a greater, 
a lower and a higher, an actual and an ideal, a 
temporal and an eternal, in one and the same 
circle of being. 

Life is a particular and a universal. Every 
leaf, for instance, is a particular and a universal, 
made up of the special nature of the leaf and the 
general nature of the World- All. Every plant 
or fruit, every insect or animal, is a double thing, 
made up of the special nature of the plant, frmt, 
insect, or animal, and the general nature of the 
All. In like manner every human life is a particu- 
lar and a universal, made up of the unique indi- 
viduality of the particular life and the general 
natiire of all the spheres. It coiild not be other- 
wise, if all the spheres have contributed to the 
production of each living thing and are represented 
in its structure and being. Every life is in a 
sense a miniature; the macrocosm reports itself 
in the microcosm. Therefore every life is a uni- 
versal. No two lives, moreover, are alike. Hence 



What Man is Working Toward 229 

each is a particular. Even though two human 
beings had absolutely like constitution, they 
would not be alike. Every consciousness is in its 
nature distinctive and unique. No human con- 
sciousness, accordingly, as long as it remains 
conscious, can ever lose its individuality. For 
consciousness as such is this particular conscious- 
ness ; it is not this and that. And no life can lose 
its universality any more than its individuality, 
for it is and continues the representative and to 
a degree the locus of the All. Now when such 
an organism functions, it must function according 
to the being that it is. It must act out its double 
nature. It must live both as a particular and as 
a universal. In all its receptivities and activi- 
ties it must act perpetually as this individual 
ego, and at the same time it must be the medium 
and agency of the universal spheres. Nothing 
human may be foreign to it, nothing cosmic, 
nothing Divine. It must function in responsive 
receptivity and co-operative activity with all 
worlds. Yet life must be a unity. There must 
be one central principle. There can not be two 
sovereign centres. Either the particular must 
be held within the dominion of the universal, 
or the universal must be subordinated to the 
particular. Which now shall it be? If the 
particular is not subordinated to the universal, 
then the law of all possible organic life is violated. 
If the particular is not subordinated, the idea 



230 God and Man 

of a common humanity is unattainable. If the 
particular is not subordinated, there can be no 
such thing as a true cosmic system, nor can the 
idea of a Universe itself be carried through ; for 
a Universe is the realisation of unity in and through 
manifold variety. Indeed the idea even of a 
sole and sovereign Divinity becomes then un- 
thinkable. But if, on the other hand, the universal 
is subordinated to the particular, pandemonium 
itself is let loose. Therefore the particular must 
find its true place in subordination. Then all 
high things become possible' — organic life, a 
common humanity, cosmic law, a unitary system, 
the idea of monotheism itself. 

For these reasons the particular must be 
subordinated to the universal. But when it is 
realised that the universal is no merely external 
thing, but is a part of the life itself, the reason 
for subordination becomes at once more plain 
and its appeal more intimate and personal. 
If the universal is also within us and is the deeper 
and more constitutive element of our being, then 
of course the particular must be subordinated. 
As long as the universal is felt to be an external 
thing only, and our life as the particular merely 
that is to be sacrificed to it, the appeal is dista nt 
and cold. Sacrifice of the self to an outside law 
or principle or power or Deity always has seemed 
unnatural and painfully hard. And it has seemed 
like total loss. But when all this is changed; 



What Man is Working Toward 231 

when the outer law becomes the inner law of our 
being, and the principle and power become the 
deeper side of our life, and the transcendent 
Deity becomes also the immanent God, then 
self-sacrifice too becomes a different thing. It 
becomes dying to live, sacrifice of the super- 
ficial to the deeper self, subordination of the 
particular to the universal side of our being. 
Then however difficult self-sacrifice may still 
remain, it is of course the thing that must be. 
Because we must realise our deeper self. 

And when we consider that the universal within 
us represents pre-eminently the life of God in 
the soul of man, a deeper cogency is added. 
But why conclude that the universal is the locus 
of God's presence? and why pre-eminently so? 
Earth and sky and humanity are represented in 
the universal side of man's being. Truth and 
beauty and ideals are represented there. Is 
God alone absent ? It would be nearer the truth 
to say that He alone is present. For what are 
all other presences but manifestations of Him? 
It comes to this: Is God verily God? Does He 
really carry on the divine business of Godhead? 
Is He a living God indeed to our thought ? The 
moment we make serious work with the idea of 
God and carry the concept through, we see that 
He must be represented and present in every life, 
or He is in no sense the living God. And He 
must be pre-eminently present in the deeper 



232 God and Man 

universal side of man's life. He is not absent 
from the particiilar. But it is precisely the par- 
ticular, the individual, that He has constituted 
our distinctive humanity. Thereof we may say 
with most truth: This is I and not God. But 
the distinction, though profound, is not absolute. 
In the universal however He must be pre-emi- 
nently present, for therein man is one with all 
Reality. If this is true, if the universal thus 
represents the life of God in the soul of man, 
then the particular must know its place. It 
must discover its true life and fulfil itself in per- 
fect devotion. Life has become sacred. Divin- 
ity is interior to the soul. Consecration is the 
only thing fitting. The particular self must be 
sacrificed. 

After the foregoing it seems natural to say 
that every life is also a less and a greater, a 
lower and a higher. This is true in general, 
but specially true of human life. That which 
the leaf has in common with the tree is greater 
than that which differentiates it. Consequently 
it lives in subordination and harmony. And 
that which the tree has in common with nature 
is greater than that which differentiates it. 
Therefore it lives in harmonious subordination. 
That again which the animal has in common with 
the World- All is greater than that which differen- 
tiates it. Hence it lives in fitting harmony. 
The same is true of man. That which each of 



What Man is Working Toward 233 

us has in common with the All is greater than 
that which differentiates each. Therefore he 
should live in subordination and harmony. The 
less should serve the greater. 

No one can look long into the depths of 
life without seeing that there are greater things 
than appear on its surface. The mysterious 
greatness of life becomes more and more im- 
pressive to deepening insight. The territories 
back of the frontiers, the depths of human 
tragedy and suffering, the heights of triumph 
and joy, the dim and darkening regions beyond 
the horizon, tell of life's unmeasured great- 
ness. Now and then we turn a sharp corner 
and catch glimpses of vast areas that generally 
lie hidden. At times elemental fires burst up 
through from abysmal depths beneath, or strange 
lights shoot up above the horizon in life's distant 
sky, or again we hear the waves from the mighty 
ocean break upon our shores, or feel its silent 
tides flow into our bays "too full for sound." 
Life indeed is a great continent of mystery, 
embosomed in vast mysterious oceans, and en- 
shrouded by an infinite mysterious sky. Once 
in a while a great poet and seer arises to tell of 
life's depths and greatness and to sing of the 
mystery of man. Then the imagination of a 
people is kindled and all men feel anew the great 
mysterious background. In truth, human life 
must have a certain infinite quality about it. 



234 God and Man 

Otherwise it is difficult to see how it could arrive 
at the thought of the infinite, or hold the idea 
of the perfect, or feel after the infinite God, or 
be capable of eternal life and of endless devel- 
opment. Such vast conception, such boundless 
yearning, such unconfined destiny do not comport 
with an absolutely limited being. That which 
only infinite Divinity can satisfy must itself have 
a certain infinite quality about it. Now this 
infinite quality, this larger background, this 
major side of life, is not the individualistic element. 
It is the stake that humanity has in us. It is 
the common ground of nature. It is the common 
field of truth and beauty and ideals. It is the 
universal life of God. The individual, the differ- 
entiating element, never constituted the greater 
side of any life. The differentiae are never the 
major element of an3rthing. It is with life as 
it is with a true picture, the foreground is never 
greater than the background. The individual 
then is the minor. As minor, it must devote 
itself. The less must give itself to the greater. 
The foreground must set itself against the back- 
ground and find its true place and life there. 
The finite must consecrate itself to the infinite 
in life. Once more the individual self must die 
to live. 

Our many-sided life as we have noted is also 
a lower and a higher. If that be true of course 
the lower must serve the higher. Wherever the 



What Man is Working Toward 235 

lower touches the higher, in any orderly system, 
or living organism, or rational field, or spiritual 
kingdom, the lower always must serve. The 
body must obey the mind. The lower ranges of 
the mind must obey the higher moral and spiritual 
ranges. The nobler always must give the law. 
And if it be true that the highest within us re- 
presents the presence of God in the soul, then 
our spiritual nature is clothed with superior 
sovereignty indeed. But however stupendous 
this fact, nothing less can be true. God above 
all must be present. 

We do not sufficiently take in and deeply in- 
terpret the momentous fact that all worlds are 
represented in our life. Sun, moon, and stars 
are represented. The mighty cosmic system 
has set up its kingdom within. The realms of 
truth have their seat there. All beauty is mir- 
rored in our life. And the supernal ideals have 
their special place there. Is the omnipresent 
God alone absent ? We do not make serious work 
with our idea of God. Scientifically, nothing is 
more sure than that earth and sky and all the 
subtler kingdoms are represented in life. How 
then is this fact to be interpreted? Is God there, 
or not? Are the bodies of things present and 
is the Soul of them absent? Are the spheres 
only spheres? Is He who pervades and informs 
all, absent from the forms? Are not they all 
forms of His presence? Shall all worlds, shall 



/ 



236 God and Man 

the Universe, be present in man's life and God 
alone be absent? On the contrary are not man 
and worlds, rather, taken up and held within 
that infinite Life, in whom all things consist? 
This is the only interpretation for one who makes 
serious work with the idea of God. All others 
play with the idea. They have no living God 
in their thoughts. All laws, all powers, all forms 
finally are His presence. All voices are His voices 
in the end. If it be a most certain fact that all 
spheres are represented in man, much more is 
God represented, or God is not God. 

It is a most irradiating and wholesome thing 
for us, in this manner, to take account of our- 
selves. What is this mysterious universal side 
of our life anyway? Is it only so much earth- 
crust, and solidified sunlight and systematised 
law, etc. ? Or is it the presence of the Divine in 
reality? the presence of the absolute Universal 
back of all, "of whom, through whom, and unto 
whom, are all things, and we unto Him. " We 
are, it is true, earth of earth, vapour of vapour, 
atmosphere of atmosphere, light of light, ether 
of ether, law of law, truth of truth, beauty of 
beauty, ideal of ideal, and life of life; but back 
of all and through all, we are spirit of infinite 
Spirit. We are children of God. Therefore the 
background of life is divine. God is present in 
our humanity. He has not shut Himself out 
of His own temple. The higher side of life then 



What Man is Working Toward 237 

is the "Holy of Holies"; the lower, the "holy 
place " that exists for and finds its meaning in 
the higher. Accordingly the lower must give 
itself — ^and be glorified. So again we must die 
to live. 

Study of the other aspects of life will empha- 
sise the same result, for we are an actual and an 
ideal, a temporal and an eternal, in one and the 
same life. Our actual life is evident. We are 
clearly aware of it. It is all too apt to seem our 
real life. Our ideal life is hidden. We believe 
in it. But it is apt to seem vague. Nevertheless 
the actual is not the deepest, it is not our truest 
life. It is not the truest life of anyone, not even 
of the most complete saint. For him, every 
to-morrow has a deeper, richer thing to show. 
But if the life be, not the choice soul, but the 
common unconsecrated life of the individualistic 
stage, the actual is far from the true. If we are 
not living in the depths, in the profound universal 
side of our being, life is far indeed from the true. 
The true life is always the deepest, most perfect 
thing of which our being is capable. It is never 
wholly attained. The actual therefore is a 
perpetual falling short, even in the consecrated 
life that has related the surface to the depths. 
The actual therefore must receive the law, not 
give it. The true law-giver is the ideal, the 
universal, the prophetic. 

Take what stage of development you will. 



238 God and Man 

Take the selfish, egoistic stage of the unconse- 
crated life, or the devoted stage of the consecrated 
life, the law of subordination holds. The actual 
Paul must be subordinated to the ideal Paul, 
just as certainly as the actual Saul. The Prodigal, 
returned and at home, must sacrifice the actual 
to the ideal, just as truly as the Prodigal in the 
far country. The most perfect to-day must be 
sacrificed to the more perfect to-morrow. If the 
law holds on the higher plane, it certainly holds 
on the lower. Certainly the selfish egoistic life 
must be subordinated. Always the actual must 
be sacrificed to the ideal. And if the ideal is not 
only something outside and above but also some- 
thing inside and deep within us, if in reality it 
is our profoundest, truest self, then sacrifice of 
the actual to the ideal becomes an intimate and 
insistent afTair. Nothing could be more vital 
and personal. Then too self-sacrifice loses, in 
the deepest sense, its repellent character. The 
pain still remains, but it becomes the pangs of 
the higher birth. And when we consider that 
our to-day at its best is no more than the sketch 
of the pictiire that is to be, when we remind our- 
selves that our noblest attainment is but a very 
far-off approach to our own ideal and to the finished 
picture as it hangs in the gallery of God's mind, 
we realise anew that the actual must be sacrificedto 
the ideal. Only so can the costly glories of the 
higher life come. Once more we must die to live. 



What Man is Working Toward 239 

Finally life is both a temporal and an eternal. 
If this meant simply that life is divided into two 
epochs, the temporal life that we are living here 
and the eternal life that we enter upon beyond, 
it still would remain true that the temporal must 
be subordinated to the eternal. The moment 
must give way to the cycle. When however we 
come to a juster, richer conception of the eternal, 
when we conceive of it, not merely as an adden- 
dum to the present without reference or relation 
to the here-and-now, but rather as the deeper, 
truer side of our present life, the reason for 
self-sacrifice becomes greatly enriched. The eter- 
nal is brought out of the far-off other world 
down into the circle of the present. It becomes 
the serious concern, not only of the future life, 
but also of the life that now is. For it is seen 
to be the significant, unfathomable side of the 
present, the ocean underneath the waves that 
are borne upon its surface. But when a yet 
truer view of the eternal is attained, when it is 
seen to come closer home still, seen not merely 
as the deeper side, related to life as depth to 
surface, but even as the pervasive animating 
soul and significant content of every present 
moment, self-sacrifice becomes almost an axiom 
of normal living. Manifestly the temporal must 
be subordinated to the eternal if the "now" 
deeply understood is seen to be such a significant 
thing, if it is both a temporal and an eternal in 



240 God and Man 

one. If that be true, no man may say: "As 
for my part, I choose the present moment, and 
reck not the eternal life. ' ' For what is the pre- 
sent moment that he chooses ? It is a temporal- 
eternal in one. So that if he knows what he is 
choosing, if he really chooses the present moment, 
the true present, he chooses the eternal life in 
the present. Just as the wave, if it deeply 
chose itself, would choose the ocean too. For 
eternity is in the present moment and the present 
moment is a wave on the ocean of eternity. 
Whosoever therefore triily chooses the present 
and lives therein, lives also the life eternal here 
and now. The temporal still must be subordi- 
nated, the law of sacrifice still holds. But how 
different it is, how changed! Now eternity is 
set in the heart of man, and all the present has 
become rich with its unfathomable meaning. 

It has resulted that each time we have studied 
a new aspect of life, our thought has followed 
a similar path. The superficial each time has 
deepened into the profound. Life, we said, is a 
particular and a universal, a less and a greater, 
a lower and a higher, an actual and an ideal, 
a temporal and an eternal, in one and the same 
circle of being. But as we have drawn nearer 
and come to a more intimate and interior view, 
we have seen the universal become the constitutive 
element of the particular; the greater, the back- 
ground of the less; the higher, the life and law 



What Man is Working Toward 241 

of the lower; the ideal, the deeper being and 
spirit of the actual; and the eternal, the infinite 
meaning and soul of the temporal. Accordingly 
we have seen, in a nearer and more vital way, 
why the particular, the less, the lower, the actual, 
the temporal, must be subordinated; why the 
egoistic self must be sacrificed. But we have 
seen also the law of self-sacrifice become an 
immeasurably deeper and different thing. It has 
not lost the character and pain of sacrifice, but 
it has become a law of life. We die to live. 

If now to all this we could add, that the only 
way really to save these individualistic elements 
of life is to consecrate them, the only way to 
eternalise them is to sacrifice them, a fitting and 
happy climax would be given. And this is the 
certain and impressive fact. As the only way to 
save a seed is to plant it, and the only way 
to save strength is to use it, and the only way to 
save love is to give it away, and the only way 
to save our youth is to devote it and pass the 
finer soul of it on into manhood, so the only way 
to save the self is to consecrate it. If the partic- 
ular, or less, or lower, or actual, or temporal, side 
of our life undertakes to set up for itself and be 
somewhat on its own account and tries to live 
for itself, it is overtaken at last with self-defeat 
and ends in utter loss. As a wasted youth, a 
hardened heart, a narrowed soul, a shrunken 
and isolated individuality, that all men shun, 
16 



2 42 God and Man 

and at the last a sorrowftil and embittered old 
age forever bear witness. On the contrary, 
no devoted, usefiil life is ever lost. The patriot 
whose grave we strew with flowers, the philan- 
thropist whose memory we perpetuate with our 
monument, the martyr for a great cause whose 
blood becomes the seed of reform, dies with 
shining face, and all men sing his worth and are 
thankful. The way to eternalise the self is to 
sacrifice it. "Whosoever would save his life 
shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life 
for my sake shall find it. " 

Another series of considerations meets us as 
soon as we view life not as static but as active — 
which is the only final and real way of viewing it. 
Because we are centres of life, receptive and active, 
and developing beings, unfinished in creation, 
and ideally children of God. 

We are centres of life, receptive and active. 
Now no selfish life can be richly receptive. Sel- 
fishness in its nature is unopenness. It can not 
sympathise; it can not love; it can not forget 
and lose itself. So it can not open itself wide 
to any world. It can not be richly receptive 
to nature, or truth, or beauty, or ideals, to human- 
ity or to God. Men instinctively turn aw^ay and 
will not give themselves to the selfish life. Nature 
can not give itself to the unappreciative soul. 
Truth and beauty and ideals can give themselves 



What Man is Working Toward 243 

abundantly only to the life that loves. And God 
can not pour Himself into the selfish heart. 
The essential incapacity of selfishness to receive 
is a startling and sobering fact. And it is espe- 
cially true touching all the finer worlds. The 
more spiritual and precious the realm of Reality 
is, the more incapable is the selfish life of com- 
muning with and sharing it. Yet it is commonly 
taken for granted by blind selfishness that at 
any rate it can receive without limit. Few things, 
however, are farther from the truth. Its heart 
is dead, its soul is closed. 

Nor can any selfish life be richly active. It is 
ungenerous in its nature. Its doors do not swing 
easily open. It lacks motive. The deep impulse 
of the forth-pouring life is wanting. It is narrow 
also in its interests. The broad fields of kindness, 
the realms of love, the many valleys of sympathy, 
the wide areas of helpfulness, the worlds of sacri- 
fice, it is shut out from. It seeks them not. 
It has no desire to pour itself out, and has nothing 
to pour. Its activity toward all the great king- 
doms of light and sweetness and grace and nobility 
is paral3^sed. It is like a many-mouthed fountain 
frozen at its heart. It is appalling how meagre the 
activity of a hard and selfish heart can become. 
It is shut out from every great and generous 
world, and lives a withering life in an ever- 
narrowing shell. And even though it attempted 
to pour itself forth, neither God nor man would 



244 God and Man 

receive it. Men will not hear its words nor wel- 
come its deeds. They will accept counsel only 
from sympathetic lips and be saved only by 
self-sacrificing love. And God will not hear its 
prayers. The Pharisee must ever stand and 
pray "thus with himself.'' And what have the 
great worlds of truth and beauty and ideals to 
do with a petty and self-centred life? Their 
nature is broad and general as the sky and finer 
than light. They resist the non-kindred and 
coarse approaches of egoism. And though egoism 
had the fulness of the ocean it could not pour 
itself forth. It lacks the objective attitude. 
Only the life that is deeply interested in the great 
higher worlds and that can forget itself and give 
itself with perfect abandon, can pour itself out 
in full rich action. But this is the antithesis of 
the selfish life. In the nature of things, therefore, 
all rich receptivity and rich activity are impos- 
sible to the selfish soul. 

If this be true, a curse rests upon selfishness on 
both the great sides of life ; for every living being, 
every centre of life, has two great sides, recep- 
tivity and activity. Incapacity to receive and 
incapacity to give must mean ever-deepening 
poverty. The "mighty famine" inevitably must 
arise in every land whither selfishness takes its 
unblest way. Involved in all this, of course, 
is the fact that this double incapacity means 
the inhibition of growth. For the life that does 



What Man is Working Toward 245 

not richly receive and richly give can not de- 
velop. But this is so evident that, important 
as it is, with a passing word it may be left to 
the imagination. 

Moreover man, in his wonderful being and 
unlimited possibilities of development, is the 
most unfinished of all the works of God. The 
creative Hands are still upon him. He is in the 
initial stage. But selfishness in its very nature 
hinders God's continuously creative action. It is 
as though a marvellous statue, when little more 
than outlined, resisted, and took itself out from 
under the creative hands of the sculptor. 

The natural culmination of this group of 
thoughts is that man is ideally a child of God. 
But plainly that high goal must be forever for- 
bidden and denied the persistently selfish life. 

Thus the blight and curse of selfishness falls 
everywhere on life. All rich receptivity is made 
impossible; all rich activity; and hence all rich 
development. The continuous creative work of 
God is hindered; and so the attainment of life's 
great goal in perfect childhood to God, inhib- 
ited forever. Of all the follies and sins of 
man, selfishness is the most comprehensive and 
consummate. 

After this extended and critical analysis, in 
which we have seen from many points of view 
why the egoistic self must be overcome, let us 



246 God and Man 

turn to the idea of the human life as such. The 
concept itself of a full human life will be found, 
I think, upon examination to imply transcended 
egoism. No one means by a human being a 
merely individualistic self. No one means a 
life that has not worthily used its strength, nor 
devoted its affections, nor consecrated its thought 
and its spirit. A self-centred creature that never 
matched his strength against the world's work, 
or devoted his affections to the great objects, 
or measured his mind against the universe, or 
exercised his soul toward the Divine, is not what 
we mean by man. Had Brutus been such, 
Shakespeare never would have put upon the 
lips of Antony the words : 

" His life was gentle, and the elements 
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world 'This was a man!' " 

The full concept of a human being always means, 
for ouf thought, a life that richly has come to 
itself, then poured itself out toward all worlds 
in rich activity and devoted service. One who 
has gifts but never has used them worthily, has 
failed, we say, to "make a man of himself." 
The representative man is the devoted man. If 
this be true, then instinctively we have gathered 
together in our concept itself of a human life 
the same developments that our searching analy- 
sis brought to light. And instinctively, in thought , 



What Man is Working Toward 247 

a selfish being is as unsatisfactory as he is prac- 
tically in life. 

Last of all, if appeal is made to consciousness 
and experience, down deep in our being we know 
well that the egoistic self must be sacrificed, 
that we must die to live. If we have any doubt 
about the matter, our friends have not. Nothing 
is more absurdly patent to them. Every man 
instantly ' can place the key in his neighbour's 
hand. 

Herewith we complete our examination into 
many of the deep unchanging reasons why the 
self must be sacrificed, why we must develop 
from self -consciousness, self-relationship, and self- 
service, into consciousness, relationship^ and ser- 
vice of God, from an individual self into a univer- 
sal self. The reasons have gone as deep as the 
foundations and laws of life and growth. They 
have had about them something of the magni- 
tude of the great spheres with which life is bound 
up. We have realised that we are parts of the 
All, and forever will remain such; that we are 
minor, dependent, and created parts; and that 
we are lower in dignity than Divinity. Conse- 
quently the particular, egoistic self must be 
subordinated. Otherwise we disregard the total 
truth and fact of things and the inherent qual- 
ity and sovereignty of the Divine. And we set 
ourselves against the Universe and the Universe 



248 God and Man 

against us. This we realised when we studied 
the relation of a life to the All, and noted the 
essential attitude of selfishness. But when we 
turned and looked at human life itself, and saw 
that it is always a double thing, a particular and 
an individual, a less and a greater, a lower and 
a higher, an actual and an ideal, a temporal 
and an eternal, in one and the same circle of 
being, the conclusion was confirmed. Whoever 
stays long enough with the terms to comprehend 
them, feels that the first series must be subordi- 
nated to the second. When again we studied 
life in its real nature, and viewed it as a living 
process, not as a static whole to be analysed, but 
as a living being forever changing and developing, 
we saw how antithetic selfishness is to the very 
processes of life and growth. Because to live 
is to receive ; to live is to act ; to live is to renew 
life and grow. To live is to be perpetually and 
progressively created, and to unfold without end 
toward the higher childhood to God. But the 
selfish life can neither richly receive, nor give, 
nor grow. And it thwarts God's creative activity 
upon it, and arrests its own ascent. It shuts 
itself out from all the great worlds and lives a 
perpetually narrowing life. Of all the fatuities 
and sins of our human kind, selfishness is the 
deepest, most inclusive, most persistent, most 
egregious. The battle against it is life's great 
conflict; self-conquest is life's great triumph; 



What Man is Working Toward 249 

and the attainment of the higher humility Hfe's 
last glory. We must indeed die to live, but then 
we live indeed. 

If now we have won our conclusion, if we have 
dug down to the Rock of the deeper self, we may 
raise again the question of our chapter: What 
is man in the world for? What is he working 
toward? What is he seeking to become? And 
again we may answer that he is seeking to pro- 
gress from self-consciousness, relationship, and 
service into consciousness, relationship, and ser- 
vice of God ; from a particular into a universal ; 
from an ensphered particular, or child, into an 
ensphering, producing universal, or parent; from 
narrow, meagre, temporal life, or individuality, 
into broad, rich, eternal life, or personality; and 
from a child of the animal Idngdom into a child 
of the spiritual kingdom, — ^that is into a child 
of God, and so into a complete man. He is 
seeking to attain the higher life. His deep 
quest, even through all his bewildered struggle, 
is for the truer, larger self. He dies to live the 
larger life. 

A natural question here arises, and with its 
answer we may close the chapter. If thus loss 
is gain, if losing is finding, why does it still 
seem like sacrifice? and why is it still so diffi- 
cult ? Because it is sacrifice, genuine sacrifice ; of 
the individual self to the All, of the particular 
to the universal, of the intimate little to the 



250 God and Man 

remote large, of the vivid to the vague self, 
of the warm and living present to the seeming- 
cold and distant future, and of the primordial 
lower to the subsequent higher. It never will 
appear, in the first instance, anything but sacri- 
fice. The higher birth will always be in pain. 
It will represent to the end the costly glories of 
the Higher Life. 



CHAPTER X 
god's process: or god's movement manward 

LET us run back over the road by which we 
have come. We saw the vast World-All 
as it enfolds the life of man with its many spheres. 
We saw the wide-ranging and corresponding 
gamut of our human powers. We saw the 
World- All at work, or the priority and parent- 
hood and greater working of God. We strove 
to see why man is not more conscious of the 
divine working. We saw man at work. We 
inquired what God is working toward. And we 
saw what man is working toward, or what he 
is seeking to become. 

We now wish to see how God proceeds, how 
He comes to humanity, the way He develops 
the complete man. 

God develops man by a great process of Self- 
revelation, by a vast and perpetual coming to 
man. 

The forth-going of God, the coming of God 

to man, is the first and fundamental condition of 

air hope and progress. It is most essential to 

realise this. And it is profoundly and abidingly 

251 



252 God and Man 

helpM. God must come to man in creative 
activity, creating his higher Hfe as He created 
his lower. Man could not create the one; he 
can not create the other. And he is an unfinished 
creation. As God went forth and created man's 
body and lower life and laid in the depths of 
his being a germinal nature capable of higher 
things, so He must continue to go forth and 
create man's higher life. Whatever man himself 
may do to achieve, he can do nothing at bottom 
to create. What he does is indeed great, but 
what God does is primal. He is as helpless in his 
higher being without the prior and parenting 
God as he is in his lower without the anteced- 
ent Universe. The vernal sun must precede the 
flowers of every spring. How absolutely our 
higher nature waits upon God, as Spring waits 
upon the sun, we do not begin to appreciate. 
Next to the fact that God and man exist, is the 
supreme condition of the priority of God. Things 
must begin at the primal Source. Unless God 
acts, unless He goes forth toward man, nothing is 
possible. Nature flows from Him. Life streams 
from Him. He is the absolute pre-condition. 
Unless He moves manward in continuous crea- 
tive activity there is no possible efflorescence for 
man. 

The way God forever flows forth in continuous 
creative process is not duly contemplated. For 
if He perpetually proceeds, if He is the fountain- 



God's Movement Manward 253 

head of all the universal streams, and if without 
Him nothing comes into being or maintains 
existence for an instant, then that He should go 
forth toward the higher life of man, would seem 
indeed most natural and not strange; and that 
without such procession no higher life would 
be possible, would seem indeed impressively cer- 
tain. He must come to man as a parent to a 
child. Unless He were forever coming all man's 
aspiration and toil would be vain. He could 
no more attain unto a developed mind than unto 
a developed body. 

How all things wait upon God and how per- 
fectly and absolutely He is their pre-condition, 
how He is the originating activity of all being 
and becoming, of all earth's birth and growth, 
we little regard because of the very magnitude 
and depth of the truth. If God moves, then all 
things are possible. If God is God indeed, if 
He undertakes for man, then "exceeding great 
and precious promises" are in no way absurd. 
Here is the first postulate of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. Here is the secret of life. Here also is 
the key of failure. Humanity's great failure is not 
on the surface but in the depths. It is failure 
to believe in a living God. The true vision of 
God lingers and the divine Fatherhood is emptied 
of content, therefore the human childhood is 
feeble and poor. "If God is for us, who is against 
us?" But if He be not a living God, if He be 



2 54 God and Man 

not the infinite quickening Background of whom 
and through whom- are all things, if He be not as 
active as fire, as vivifying as light, as creative 
as spirit, then unrelieved despair falls like a 
shadow athwart the fields of life. From such 
night and despair we turn quickly away. 

If, on the contrary, as is true, God is the "infi- 
nite and eternal Energy from whom all things 
proceed," if He is the everlasting God, the Al- 
mighty, the "Creator of the ends of the earth, 
who fainteth not, neither is weary," if He is the 
universal enfolding Life in whom we all "live 
and move and have our being," then "all things 
are possible to him that believeth." 

And if He is God indeed. He must be so after 
His own magnitudes. He must act after an 
infinite sort. He must move in ways majestical. 
Our expectancy, therefore, should be great. 
We should anticipate something worthy of God. 
We should look for a divine Self-revelation, a 
movement of God toward man, paralleling in the 
realm of Spirit His vast Self-expression in nature. 
That is, we should be prepared for a revelation 
of the divine Background, His infinite and eternal 
Divinity; we should be prepared for the coming 
of God to man in the sufficiency of a divine Incar- 
nation; we should be prepared for a perfect 
communication of Himself in the final and un- 
changing procession of the Spirit, For some 
such surpassing fulness of His coming, we should 



God's Movement Manward 255 

wait expectant, if God is God indeed in the 
realms of Spirit as He is in the fields of space. 

The Divine then must go forth creating and 
to create, or God is not God. If the story of 
the higher life told of the priority of the human, 
then of course man would have become God. 
True Godhood must create. God must come, 
therefore, in perpetual creative process to the 
unfinished life of man. 

Not only so, but He must provide as well a 
higher spiritual Environment for man's higher 
life. As God has uttered Himself, as He has 
externalised Himself, as He has gone forth in a 
vast physical environment corresponding to man's 
body, so we should expect Him to go forth in 
a vast spiritual Environment corresponding to 
man's soul. God does not create things within 
the inner circle of divine Spirit. They would 
not be things. They would be pure Spirit as 
He is. Creation is through externalisation. God 
creates and develops things through a vast divine 
procession, through a vast externalisation, through 
an infinite Environment, lower and higher. With- 
out an environment, no living, growing thing. 
Without a great affectional, mental, spiritual 
Environment, no developing, maturing, human 
spirit. The indispensable, the absolute necessity 
of a great higher Environment, forever mothering 
the higher life of man, must profoundly impress 
all modem minds. Some such conception, some 



256 God and Man 

such reality, as the Kingdom of Heaven is the 
first postiilate of all truly human life. Conse- 
quently, according to God's own forth-going 
creative process, and according to the deep 
needs of the unfinished human spirit. He must 
provide a great higher Environment for man. 

And He must go forth delivering man from 
the overwhelming dominion of the lower environ- 
ment. The lower gravitations are too puissant. 
Nothing but new celestial gravitations, mightier 
than they, proceeding perpetually from a great 
higher Environment, could equal the task. How 
man ever could sever himself from the clay and 
"work out the beast" without a positive King- 
dom of Heaven, in which almighty God was 
forever coming to his higher nature, is past 
comprehension. 

God must go forth too and precede with kindred 
life the kind of life He would develop. If He 
would develop the human heart, He must sur- 
round it with a world of affection. If He would 
develop the human mind. He must surround it 
with a world of thought. If He would develop 
the spirit of man, He must brood it with a world 
of spirit. Throughout the wide biological realms 
everywhere life mothers life. It is not different 
in the finer kingdom of the soul. In the ultimate 
view God Himself is man's great Environment. 
The brooding life of God forever enfolds his 
human life. Love begetting love. Mind quickening 



God's Movement Manward 257 

mind, and Spirit brooding spirit. Everywhere 
He precedes with kindred Hfe the kind of hfe 
He would develop. "We love because He first 
loved us." 

Finally God must go forth and own and legiti- 
mate our boundless human aspiration. For what 
would all man's struggle boot if the heavens were 
brass and the stars in their courses fought against 
his ideals? He must know that the background 
of Reality is kindred and kind. He must know 
that his aspiration fits into the divine Life as 
the lily fits into the sunlight. He must know that 
his deep prayer, his high resolve, his immemorial 
struggle for the right, his unwearying quest of 
the "beauty of holiness," is heaven-suggested 
and heaven-sent. Back of all he must know 
that "every good gift and every perfect boon is 
from above, " and that he lives his high life by the 
inspiration of almighty God. Otherwise virtue 
is the most homeless thing in all a hostile Universe. 

God accordingly must come to man, forever 
creating our higher life as He creates our lower, 
forever providing a higher Environment as He 
provides a lower, effectually delivering man from 
the overwhelming dominion of the lower, every- 
where preceding with kindred life the kind of 
life He would develop, and owning and legiti- 
mating our boundless human aspiration. 

May we now hope that this foreword has been 



258 God and Man 

adequate? May we conclude that a just sense 
of the inherent and absolute necessity of the 
perpetual coming of God to man has been gained ? 
a realisation of the primal fact that unless He 
were forever coming, no aspiration ever would 
spring, or prayer rise, or grace grow? If so, 
we now may ask. How has God come? and how 
does He thereby develop man? 

He has come first of all in the way in which 
humanity needs Him. We need before all else 
to feel that everything has its source in God and 
proceeds from Him, to know that the background 
of the Universe is divine. Accordingly, God 
has revealed Himself as the God of nature and 
of humanity, as the ground of all being and be- 
coming. He has revealed Himself as the seat 
of all law, the spring of all truth, the fountain of 
all beauty, the source of all ideals. He has made 
Himself known as the Love back of love, the 
Thought back of thought, the Will back of will, 
and the Spirit back of spirit. He has manifested 
Himself as the infinite and eternal Ground of 
universal existence, by whom stars shine and 
kings rule, by whom planets move and nations 
rise, by whom the most ancient heavens are and 
are strong and the seasons come and go and the 
race renews its youth and life advances in a divine 
progression and all things move toward cosmic 
beauty. In a word. He has revealed Himself 
as the illimitable Sea and Source of all being and 



God's Movement Manward 259 

process, into whose infinite Life all worlds are 
set as the stars are set into the sky. This is 
God's primal Self-revelation. 

If it is necessary, first of all, to realise the 
infinite divine Background, to feel Divinity 
everywhere' — Divinit}^ in nature and Divinity in 
life, Divinity in law and Divinity in truth, 
Divinity in beauty and Divinity in ideals, — 
and if, before all else, God has revealed Himself 
as the divine ground of all being and process, 
we need next to realise that He has come yet 
closer in an ineffable divine Incarnation. 

Though we see God as the Divinity that hedges 
everything, still the vision is vague. Though 
we see Him pervading all and enfolding all like 
an ether, yet His presence is like some fine essence 
diffused. We can not grat,p Him. We can not 
hold Him. It is like grasping the atmosphere 
or holding communion with the sky. If He would 
gather Himself up like some mighty sun, if He 
would manifest Himself in some glorious incar- 
nation, as concrete and definite as the star of 
Bethlehem, then we could see Him and know 
Him. This is what God has done. Out of 
vagueness into definiteness, out of the universal 
into the particular, He has come. The divine 
electricity has gathered itself up in a manifesta- 
tion point of light. And this is what humanity 
needs. It is true we need a divine background 
as universal as nature, but we need also a divine 



26o God and Man 

foreground as definite as a human parent. We 
need a great ideal, fathomless Personality set 
alongside our human life, who shall be to us 
through all the years what our parents have been, 
but vastly more. Until then our great higher 
Environment is incomplete. So God must come 
near. He must come into our humanity in the 
fulness of incarnate Divinity. He must come 
as Son of God and son of man. When we can 
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 
and when, beholding as in a mirror the glory of 
the Lord, we can be changed into the same image 
from glory unto glory, then we are no longer 
"infants crying in the night," no longer "infants 
crying for the light. " God has come near then 
indeed, and the "Day Star" may arise in our 
hearts. "Behold I bring you good tidings of 
great joy which shall be to all the people, for unto 
you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord," And he that hath 
seen Him hath seen the Father. This is God's 
richer coming to man, His richer self-revelation, 
the humanising of God, His perfect incarnation. 
God has come as incarnate Divinity. 

If we could feel the divine Background every- 
where, then apprehend the incarnate Divinity, 
the nearer approach of the Divine to the human, 
and then finally receive the divine Spirit of it all, 
the circle would be complete and our human need 
would be filled to the full. For indeed nothing 



God's Movement Manward 261 

is richly received until its spirit is received. 
Hence we must receive the spirit of art, we must 
receive the spirit of beauty, we must receive 
the spirit of truth, or the deep being and soul 
of them, is not won. For this unchanging reason 
every deep thing seeks at last to impart its spirit. 
A great poem, a great philosophy, a great picture, 
a great symphony, a great life, every form and 
realm of Reality, seeks to open its heart and pour 
forth its spirit. It is so with religion. It is so 
with God. He would reveal His very self. He 
would pour forth His essential life He would 
come at last as divine Spirit to spirit. This is 
the fullest coming of God to man. For when 
Spirit to spirit speaks, the perfect has come. 
At last divine Spirit — for every deepest reason. 
Spirit is final. It is the highest possible concept. 
We can not think of an3rthing beyond. It is the 
ultimate and absolute for our thought. God is 
Spirit. We are spirit in possibility, tending 
toward spirit in actuality, tending toward the 
realisation of ourselves in spiritual personality. 
Spirit is the richest of our human terms. Spirit 
is back of all, the creative essence, the inclusive 
principle of ever3rthing. To live in a rich con- 
sciousness of God as Spirit, to live by perpetual 
divine inspiration, to unfold and unfold toward 
a fine and great spiritual personality, is a most 
magnificent growth and goal. Is an3/thing richer 
than life in the secret and soul of things? Is 



262 God and Man 

anything more exalted than elevation into the 
spiritual unity and atmosphere of things? Is 
anything more glorious than to be a spirit? 
It is the free supernal life of the sons of God. 
How free it is ! how strong ! how pure ! One pene- 
trates through the outer folds of things and 
enters the inner soul. One dwells where life is 
fluid and free, where spirit is creative, consti- 
tuting forms. One is taken into the secret of 
life, where thought rises and love begins and 
will springs, where inspiration enters, and the 
genius of man and the Spirit of God come to- 
gether in the freedom and power of new creation. 
This is life. Here is what the poet is seeking 
when he pierces through the bodies of things 
and lives in their essence and soul. Here is what 
the artist is seeking when he penetrates through 
the forms and dwells in the deep secret and spirit 
of art. Here is what the philosopher is seeking 
when he looks back of and beyond all appearance 
and abides in the heart and soul of Reality. 
And here is what all deep lives are seeking in 
every kingdom of thought and action. Here too 
is what the awakened soul is seeking. It asks, 
for all life and for life as a whole, what in other 
ways we ask for a part of life. It demands that 
all life shall be lived in the Spirit. It strives 
to realise its true self as spirit and to dwell per- 
petually in the atmosphere and divine environ- 
ment of Spirit. It seeks in fine a great, free, 



God's Movement Man ward 263 

holy, and creative life in perfect and joyous 
alliance with God. May we not then say that, 
for reasons as deep as the divine Life and the 
deeps of the soul, God finally and consummately 
reveals Himself to man in the procession of the 
Spirit ? 

But if the dispensation of the Spirit is thus 
final and consummate, why the Incarnation? 
Without the Incarnation there could be no rich 
communication or rich reception of the Spirit. 
Nature can impart something of her spirit even 
in winter. But when she has uttered herself 
in the multitudinous forms and processes of 
spring and summer, she can impart her spirit in 
thousand-fold ampler way. A great life can 
communicate something of its spirit even through 
a photograph. But when like Luther it lives 
in community of life with a people, and reveals 
itself in great words and utters itself in greater 
deeds, it can communicate its spirit to that people 
with thousand-fold augmentation. Even so God 
can impart His spirit to a degree through the 
silent words of stars and worlds. But the Pente- 
cost of His spirit will not come until He has 
revealed Himself in the rm.searchable riches of 
His incarnate Son. 

We may find this great truth everywhere. 
Charles Darwin can impart his new spirit to the 
world of science only through a long and faithful 
life of persistent and patient expression. Na- 



264 God and Man 

poleon must utter himself in appalling battles, in 
astounding designs, and in bewildering achieve- 
ments, before he can imbue a nation with his 
spirit and array a continent in arms. Dante 
must become the "voice often silent centuries" 
and incarnate himself in the most serious of 
world-poems before he can pour forth his spirit 
into many generations. Beethoven must em- 
body his spirit in immortal symphonies before he 
can pour it into the soul of the world. Michael 
Angelo must reveal his inner life in great pictures, 
and utter it in many marbles, before he can give 
his spirit to the world of art. Every true mother 
strives to impart her spirit to her growing boy. 
But how? She seeks by love, by deed, by word, 
by living her life, by self-revelation through 
incarnation, to pervade with her deeper spirit 
his unfolding life. A great university would 
imbue the troops of youth who press yearly 
through her gates. They have caught already 
something of her spirit before they came. They 
receive something more through the first look 
and touch and breath. But the depth and 
fulness thereof can not yet be given. She must 
speak first with many voices and shine through 
many men; she must reveal her ideals in expand- 
ing vision and tell anew the tradition of her 
generations; she must repeat indeed her long 
history and relive her life before the mind and 
imagination of this her new generation of children. 



God's Movement Manward 265 

before she can give to them the secret and deep 
spirit of her Hfe. It is not different in other 
realms. The New World can impart its new 
spirit to the immigrant only slowly and through 
most varied and prolonged self-manifestation. 
And on a larger scale the Occident can give its 
progressive spirit to the Orient only by first 
showing forth its world-masteries, its boundless 
wealths, its amazing sciences and great literatures, 
and its impressive and convincing achievements. 
In short, neither nature nor art, neither a nation 
nor an individual, neither a civilisation nor an 
institution can richly pour forth its spirit except 
through a rich self -manifest ion. Spirit every- 
where waits upon expression. It is so in religion. 
It is so with the Holy Spirit. And even when 
the supreme Incarnation has come, Christ stands 
face-to-face with His first disciples, unable as 
yet to pour forth the depths of His spirit. He 
first must reveal and reveal Himself in words 
and deeds; He must show forth and in a way 
repeat His Incarnation before their heart and 
understanding and imagination, ere He can 
permeate and fill them with His Spirit divine. 
At the last Pentecost ; but first the Incarnation. 
God reveals Himself in light and Life before He 
reveals Himself in Spirit. 

We now have contemplated the Self-revelation 
of God, the coming of God to man in three-fold 



266 God and Man 

form: divine Background, incarnate Divinity, 
divine Spirit. It is illuminating to note that, 
in a somewhat similar way, essentially, a great 
human personality reveals itself. Take Bis- 
marck for instance. No one can draw near to 
modern Germany without feeling his great life. 
He pervades the nation like a subtle presence. 
Vaguely at least we feel him everywhere. So 
much we gather at once from the atmosphere 
we breathe. But let the national history be 
read and the unique biography be studied; let 
his masterful personality and his changing times 
pass before our thoughtful imagination, and how 
different the impression. Now the vague becomes 
vivid and full. The dominating personality stands 
out clear and strong. The mind is impressed a 
thousand-fold with its reality and power. Now 
also the presence and might of his re-moulding 
spirit are felt and profoundly realised. 

In like manner essentially a great civilisation 
reveals itself. Look at the Greek civilisation. 
Western Europe in the Middle Ages felt its in- 
fluence at least vaguely everywhere. It was 
hidden in the roots of its life. It was present in 
the phrases of its speech. It was in the forms 
of its thought. It was in the ideals of its imagi- 
nation. It was in the instinctive movement 
of its spirit toward freedom. Dimly at any rate 
its pervasive presence was felt through the cen- 
turies. But when the sublime creations of its 



God's Movement Manward 267 

literature were made known; when the perfect 
forms of its art were re-discovered; when the 
transcendent constructions of its philosophy were 
realised; when the greatness and finish of its 
personalities were appreciated; and when the 
freedom and originality and abundance of its 
total life were consciously perceived, what a 
change followed! It was like a new birth. It 
was the Renaissance of the nations. Then too 
the rich spirit of its literature and the graceful 
spirit of its art and the deep spirit of its philosophy 
and the free spirit of its life could be poured forth 
and received in unwonted measure. 

This three-fold self-revelation is no chance and 
vagrant happening. Rather it is in the deep and 
essential nature of life. At the present time 
it may be seen on a stupendous scale in the 
Awakening of China. That great quiescent Em- 
pire vaguely has felt the presence of the Western 
World. It has been troubled by its irresistible 
power. Though it only dimly apprehended it, 
it dreaded it. But when a vast revelation of the 
civilisations of half a World shall have taken 
place, and when China, like Japan, shall have 
drunk deeply of the new spirit of the Occident, 
what a change will follow. There will be an 
awakening unparalleled likely in the annals of 
nations, a renaissance of the oldest, most populous, 
and most unchanging of human societies, the 
coming of a New China. 



268 God and Man 

How similar all this is to the revelation of God. 
First He is felt as a vague Presence pervading 
everything ; and though dimly apprehended, often 
He is dreaded. Then a vast Self -revelation takes 
place. The peoples that sit in darkness see a 
great Light. The Light of the world dawns. 
The Incarnation comes. And then the passing 
of the external form of the Incarnation, and the 
pouring out of the deep life and Spirit of it, the 
coming of the Spirit of truth, the final and com- 
plete coming of God to man. 



Can any of these revelations be dispensed with? 
Would the Self-manifestation of God be complete 
if either of them were lacking? The necessary 
answer has been more than suggested. To leave 
out the first would be like leaving out the Ground 
of the world. The most indispensable of all 
revelations is that of the divine Background of 
the Universe, the primal and all-inclusive fact 
that in God we live and move and have our 
being, as Paul standing, not in the streets of 
Jerusalem, but in the Areopagus of Athens, 
declared. To leave out the second would be 
like leaving the sun out of our heavens and walk- 
ing by the dim light of the stars. To leave out the 
third would be to leave out the deepest secret 
and soul and dynamic of life. Could the Renais- 
sance take place without the rising of the sun of 



God's Movement Manward 269 

Greek civilisation? And could the spirit thereof 
be imparted without that illumination? Can 
the awakening of China take place without the 
revelation of our modem civilisation? And can 
the new spirit be given without that revelation? 

The indispensability of the first is manifest. 
The incompleteness of life and of the great Envi- 
ronment, without the divine Background, needs 
not further emphasis. 

It is good however to see more comprehensively 
and penetratingly how deeply essential is the 
second. God can fully reveal Himself only 
through Incarnation. Expression is through ex- 
ternalisation. Revelation is through creation. 
In the nature of things the highest Self-revelation 
must be through the highest form of creation. 
So God can more perfectly reveal Himself only 
through Incarnation. This history richly con- 
firms. The Incarnation of Christ has revealed 
the divine in and back of everything as nothing 
else has ever revealed it. The divine Background 
has become incomparably more real. 

Moreover the Divine can not adequately come 
to the human except through Incarnation. Lower 
forms of Reality are too poor to express the 
wealth of the divine life. But in His incarnate 
Son God can come to man in inexhaustible 
richness. 

Through the Incarnation also the Divine 
comes out of the vague into the definite, out of 



270 God and Man 

the universal into the particular; it gathers itself 
up in a manifestation point of light. It defines 
itself to the human mind. 

Through the Incarnation too God draws inti- 
mately near. He becomes Immanuel. He is 
no longer far away. His immanence becomes 
a living reality to human consciousness. 

Through the Incarnation besides God shows 
us the Divine and the human brought together, 
the ideal realised, the perfect life attained. 

Through the Incarnation, furthermore, God 
sets alongside of each developing life a great 
inexhaustible personality. 

Finally , through the Incarnation God can reveal 
Himself in the supreme way as Spirit and impart 
Himself richly as Spirit. In and through all 
this God provides a great higher Environment — 
a thing as necessary to the higher life of man as 
the lower environment is to his body. As the 
rising of the sun brings the infinite universe into 
vitalising touch with the earth and into efficacy, 
providing a boundless environment of light and 
warmth, wherein and whereby a great kingdom 
of life alone is made possible upon the earth, 
so the Incarnation brings the infinite God into 
effective touch with man, creating an illimitable 
higher Environment of light and life, wherein 
man's higher life is naturally at home and whereby 
it is endlessly unfolded toward perfection. 

The Incarnation makes the divine Background 



God's Movement Manward 271 

revelation incomparably more rich and real. 
It makes also the divine Spirit revelation in its 
fulness possible. And in itself it is a revelation 
and a magnitude, comparable to the other two 
magnitudes, a greatness worthy of the great God. 
Is it possible that such a magnitude can be super- 
fluous? Can such a Foreground to the great 
World-Picture be dispensed with? 

Or are we right in conceiving the Incarnation 
as such a magnitude? God has made the divine 
Background revelation an illimitable magnitude. 
He has made the divine Spirit revelation such a 
magnitude. Are we not to expect that He will 
make the Incarnation also a like magnitude? 
It is the infinite God who is revealing Himself 
in each case. Will not each revelation therefore 
be after the greatness of God and so have the 
infinite quality about it? 

Moreover every sphere that surrounds our 
human life has the same boundless character, 
the same infinite quality. Nature has it; law 
has it ; truth has it ; beauty has it ; the ideal has it. 
What would life do without vast nature and 
illimitable law and infinite truth and inexhaustible 
beauty and the unlimited ideal? Though God 
has made each Reality -sphere touch our humanity 
with the definiteness of the hand of gravity or 
the touch of the sunbeam, yet He has made each 
sphere open out beyond us with the vastness of 



272 God and Man 

the sky. He has combined the two, definite 
touch and ilHmitable magnitude, in every great 
sphere. If this is the character that God has 
given to all these Reality -spheres that enfold us, 
what character may we expect Him to give to 
the highest life-spheres? Shall they alone lack 
the illimitable quality ? or shall any one of them ? 
Shall man's body even move about in greater 
worlds than man's spirit? Shall the lowest 
environment be given a greatness that is denied 
the highest? No; rather all alike shall be given 
the boundless character. As all these great 
spheres of Reality have the illimitable quality — 
nature, law, truth, beauty, ideals — so the supreme 
Life-spheres, the ineffable Self-revelations of God 
— divine Background, incarnate Divinity, and 
divine Spirit — shall have it likewise. If God has 
set man into boundless worlds everywhere else, 
will He set him into diminutive spheres in religion? 
The human mind can not abide a cabined 
world. It cannot endure a narrowed and limited 
truth, nor an exhaustible beauty, nor a finite 
ideal. Much less can it endure a limited supreme 
Environment. What were a bounded divine 
Background? or a limited Christ? or a finite 
Spirit? It were a narrow world unworthy of 
the infinite God, unadorable to man, and withal 
fruitless. As every other great Reality -sphere 
has the illimitable qualit}^ so it would appear has 
the Incarnation. Otherwise it could not satisfy 



God's Movement Manward 273 

our human mind in its demand for the Infinite, 
nor meet our human Hfe-need. 

And, in the last analysis, what is it that gives 
to all these great spheres their boundless character ? 
It is God. It is His illimitable life pouring per- 
petually through them. Consequently it is not 
strange that they should have a kind of infinite 
quality about them. This is pre-eminently true 
of the highest realms. Through them God pours 
His infinite life most abundantly. Through them 
He would create an infinite divine Environment 
for man's higher life. Through them He Himself 
would become man's infinite Environment. But 
He can not pour His boundless life through them, 
and through them become man's infinite Environ- 
ment, without imparting to them an illimitable 
character. Therefore the incarnate Divinity also 
must be a revelation and a magnitude, comparable 
to the other magnitudes, the divine Background 
and the divine Spirit. Is it possible that such 
a magnitude can be either theoretically or prac- 
tically superfluous? Who that deeply knows 
the greatness of the revelation in Christ could 
dispense with it without a sense of infinite loss? 
The "Light of the World," the luminous Fore- 
ground of the divine World-Picture would be 
gone. 

Can God's final Self -revelation be dispensed 
with? His infinite coming in the fulness of the 
Spirit? It is enough to know that no deep thing 



274 God and Man 

is fully revealed until it reveals itself as spirit, 
and that no illuminated life can rest content 
until it enters into the heart and secret and soul 
of Reality. Unless God comes as divine Spirit, 
God in His fulness has not come, Man in every 
Sacred City of life, and in every Upper Room of 
Art or Truth or Beauty or Religion, waits with 
upturned face for the Spirit's Pentecost. 

If it is impossible on the one hand for the mind 
to dispense with either divine revelation without 
infinite loss, is it possible on the other hand for it 
to add anything thereto, even in thought? Can 
we conceive of anything additional that will make 
the revelation more complete? One finds it 
instructive and valuable to make the attempt. 
One finds first that nothing could be more funda- 
mental or needful than the divine Background; 
second, that nothing could be more ideal-real 
than the divine Incarnation; third, that nothing 
could be higher and more perfect than divine 
Spirit. Together, they make up the complete 
revelation of the Divine to the human. It is 
impossible we think for the mind to add thereto, 
as it were, a fourth dimension. 

This is the threefold Self-revelation of God, 
omitting either form of which, the mind feels a 
sense of grave incompleteness and unspeakable 
loss, and to the totality of which it is unable to 
add a fourth, even in thought, making it more 
complete. 



God's Movement Manward 275 

Is it possible now to indicate with any degree 
of definiteness wherein these three forms differ 
from one another and wherein they are alike? 
Let us try. 

The divine Background is the primal Self- 
revelation of God. It is a revelation through 
externalisation, through creation, in nature and 
humanity — or in the cosmos. It is the revelation 
of God as Source, as Creator, as Father — not of 
course in the fulness of fatherhood. It is the 
revelation of God as the universal, or as the 
unitary principle of Reality. And it is the revela- 
tion of God as Spirit — vaguely and meagrely, it 
is true, still really as Spirit. 

The divine Incarnation also is a Self-revelation 
of God through creation. It is indeed the cul- 
mination of revelation through creation, or the 
perfect Incarnation. God externalises Himself 
in every form of nature and of humanity. But 
here is the culminating form of creation, God's 
supreme externalisation. So here is the richest 
revelation possible through a created form. The 
incarnate Divinity is the revelation of God as 
light, truth, reason, life. It is the revelation of 
God as a particular in the supreme form, and as 
the principle of individuation. It is the revela- 
tion of God as perfect union of the universal and 
the particular, as the ideal realised, the perfect 
life attained. Finally, it is the richer revelation 
of God as Spirit, — not Spirit in its final and 



276 God and Man 

complete fulness, and still no longer the vague 
and general divine Background. 

The divine Spirit is the Self-revelation of God 
through nature, humanity, and the Incarnation, — 
through the totality of creation, or through the 
total externalisation of God. It is the perfect 
Spirit of God pouring through His perfect crea- 
tion — not a revelation through a new creation. 
It is the higher Universal. There is a lower unity 
of the Spirit, and there is a higher unity of the 
Spirit. The lower unity has not been enriched 
by the Incarnation. The higher unity includes 
the Incarnation, includes the particular, and rises 
above it into a higher inclusive unity. The higher 
Universal includes the particular and transcends 
it. The divine Spirit is the final and complete 
Self-revelation of God. It is complete because 
it includes the preceding moments, divine Back- 
ground, and incarnate Divinity. It is the revela- 
tion of God as God, as Absolute Spirit. 

We have here what we may call the Spiral of 
the Spirit. From the earth it rises circling through 
a sea of light, mounting up and losing itself in the 
mysterious radiance of the Heavens, completing 
itself in one majestic perfect circuit. From the 
divine Ground of the first revelation, up through 
the sea of light of the Incarnation, to the high 
Heavens of the life of God, the complete revela- 
tion of the divine as Spirit, it ascends. The 
Spiral of the Spirit is Spirit in the beginning, 



God's Movement Manward 277 

middle, and end. The divine Ground is Spirit, 
though opaque. The Incarnation is Spirit, re- 
vealed in a transparent atmosphere of light. The 
divine Spirit is Spirit revealed in the fulness of 
its nature, God in His glory. The Spiral of the 
Spirit includes all the forms of the manifestation. 
Though the highest form transcends the others, 
it includes them; as maturity, though it tran- 
scends childhood and youth, yet includes them. 
The Spiral of the Spirit, as it ascends, passes 
round in its course into opposition to itself at 
its beginning, and then rising higher it returns 
upon itself again when the circuit is complete 
at the summit. The Incarnation is the side in 
opposition, when the Spiral of the Spirit stands 
over against itself, facing its own beginning and 
its close. It is Spirit in its completest objecti- 
fication. Spirit in its most perfect externalisation, 
where perfect Personality stands over against 
perfect Personality. But the Incarnation is in- 
cluded therein and the circuit is one Spiral of 
the Spirit throughout. 

Our figure is not perfect, to be sure, and must 
not be pressed unduly. Still within limits it may 
represent the threefold Self -manifestation of God. 
The second stage is not reached without the first, 
nor the third without the first and second. And 
the second, when it comes, rises above and in- 
cludes the first; and the third rises above and 
includes the first and second. Here again our 



2 78 God and Man 

figure is faithful to the Reality. The Incarna- 
tion does not come until after the divine Back- 
ground revelation, nor the divine Spirit till after 
the Incarnation. And the Incarnation, when it 
comes, rises above and includes the primal revela- 
tion, revealing and enriching its meaning; and 
the divine Spirit rises above and includes them 
both, revealing and enlarging the meaning of 
each. For the divine Fatherhood means vastly 
more since Christ has come, and both it and 
the Incarnation mean more since the Spirit was 
given. 

And although these three modes of Self -mani- 
festation were historical and epochal in their 
appearance, none of them ever really has passed 
away. The outward form of the Incarnation has 
passed, the reality abides. Essentially they all 
abide. They co-exist, and together they make 
up now the threefold and perfect Self-revelation 
of God to man. The divine Background abides 
and is the constant field against which the incar- 
nate Divinity is set, giving to it fathomless mean- 
ing. The Incarnation abides and makes the divine 
Background for us ever more and more luminous, 
large, and deep. And the divine Background and 
the Incarnation together are still the revelations 
through which the Spirit is poured forth, while 
the outpouring Spirit in turn for ever makes both 
the divine Background and the Incarnation shine 
with deeper truth. 



God's Movement Manward 279 

This is the way God reveals Himself and comes 
to man. 

Looking at it now from the human side, what 
shall we say? It is a revelation and a coming 
in accordance with our nature. It accords with 
us as instinctive, as intellectual, and as spiritual 
beings. Of course here there can be no abso- 
lute delimitations. The lines can not be drawn 
with nicety. For our instinctive nature suffuses 
the intellect and the spirit ; and these in turn are 
implicated with our instinctive being. 

Naturally the divine Background revelation 
appeals first of all to our instincts and feelings, 
our faiths and intuitions. It is the elementary 
revelation of the spiritual unity of the World-All. 
It comes to us accordingly with its appeal to the 
primal unity of our nature. This does not mean, 
to be sure, that it makes no approach whatever 
to the intellect and the spirit. Its primary appeal 
however is not to them. It must be remembered 
that the intellect may be even largely developed, 
yet be unaccustomed to sustained thought God- 
ward. It does not follow, therefore, that because 
the intellect of a nation or of an individual is well 
developed, necessarily it must be correspondingly 
occupied with things divine. It is deplorably true 
that even yet, when the higher revelations long since 
have come, the intellect is little used upon the high- 
est things, and few people love God with the mind. 



28o God and Man 

The Incarnation is the great revelation and 
coming of the Divine to the intellect of man. It 
is an appeal to the heart and spirit too, but pre- 
eminently it is God's coming to the mind. It is 
the Divine gathering itself up in a manifestation- 
point, the Divine coming near. But this is lan- 
guage importing appeal to the intellect. The 
Incarnation is the coming of the Universal and 
Divine into the particular. The Divine particu- 
larises itself in stars and worlds, in trees and 
flowers, in all the forms of nature. Now wher- 
ever there is particularisation there is a resting- 
point for the mind. The mind does not easily 
think about a diffused fire-mist. It does think 
easily about concreted worlds. Differentiation is 
thought's opportunity. Objects appeal to sub- 
jects. Therefore when the Divine humanises 
itself and comes to man in personal form, it is 
pre-eminently an approach to his conscious 
intellect. 

The Incarnation also is the union of the true 
Universal with the perfect particular. The per- 
fect particular is human personality at its summit. 
The true Universal is Divinity itself and not a 
semblance thereof. The perfect Incarnation is 
the perfect union of the two. In such a life one 
will see the pronounced and perfect individual, 
but it will be the mirror in which one will see 
also the perfect Universal, the Divine. As in 
the perfect picture, one will see the true and 



God's Movement Manward 281 

definite whole with characteristic individuality, 
but will see also the shining universal. Or as 
in the perfect poem, one will see the definite 
unity and individuality, but will see as well the 
universal truth and beauty. Every perfect thing 
is the perfect union of the particular and the 
universal; and one sees therein the glory of the 
universal shining through the particular. But 
the seeing is with open eyes. It is a live con- 
sciousness that sees. So when one sees in the 
Incarnate Christ, as in a mirror, the glory of God, 
it is the awakened mind that sees. 

The Incarnation, moreover, is the coming of 
God in the supreme sense, as truth to the human 
mind. It is also His coming as a supreme Life. 
Truth alone, even the highest, can not satisfy 
the whole mind. A life can. When God comes 
as a Consciousness to a consciousness, then the 
mind is filled and satisfied. Here again we have 
notably the language of cognition. The Incar- 
nation furthermore is the coming of God to man 
as realised ideal. But only an exalted conscious- 
ness can behold and appreciate the ideal. Here 
once more we have the Incarnation as pre-emi- 
nently an appeal to the mind. 

Finally, the Incarnation is the supreme exter- 
nalisation, the supreme objectification of God. 
All things are externalisations of God — the 
heavens above, the earth beneath, and man 
upon the earth. All creation is externalisation, 



282 God and Man 

objectification. Christ is the supreme objecti- 
fication. He is perfect PersonaUty set over 
against perfect PersonaUty. Therefore He is the 
supreme approach of God to consciousness. 
Objects are for consciousness. All objectifica- 
tion as such is an appeal to consciousness as such. 
The very form of consciousness is subject-object. 
Consequently the supreme objectification of the 
Divine in the perfect personality of Christ is God's 
supreme appeal to our consciousness as conscious- 
ness. The Incarnation, we conclude, is the char- 
acteristic appeal of God to the mind, the supreme 
revelation of the Divine to the intellect. 

But is not the revelation hard to comprehend? 
Is not the great answer of God to the mind diffi- 
cult to understand? No; and Yes. No, for the 
Christ-story and the Christ-life appeal even re- 
markably to children and childlike peoples. Yes, 
for it transcends and outgoes the fascinated and 
wondering minds of the wisest and greatest. But 
in this it is like all of God's great answers in 
nature, and like all of man's great answers in 
science, in poetry, in philosophy. And it is like 
the answer in all great personalities. They are near 
yet far. Like the ocean, they break at our feet. 
Like the ocean, they sweep out beyond our ken. 
Christ too is near yet far. The heavens are all about 
us, yet they are so high above us. This must ever 
be and remain the character of all the highest reve- 
lations, of all the supreme answers of God to man. 



God's Movement Manward 283 

The Incarnation, we have said, is God's great 
movement toward man as an intellectual being. 
See how this corresponds with Jesus' view of 
Himself. No one knoweth who the Father is 
save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son 
willeth to reveal Him. I am the truth. I am 
the way. I am the life. (And the life was the 
light of men.) I am the light of the world; he 
that foUoweth me shall not walk in the darkness 
but shall have the light of life. To this end have 
I been bom, and to this end am I come into the 
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. 

It corresponds likewise with the view others 
had of Him. And the Logos (Word) became flesh 
and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, 
glory as of the only begotten from the Father), 
full of grace and truth. There was the true 
light, even the light which light eth every man, 
coming into the world. No man hath seen God 
at any time; the only begotten Son, which is 
in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
Him. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 
That they might know the mystery of God, even 
Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge hidden. Seeing it is God that 
said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who 
shined in our hearts, to give the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ. Even as truth is in Jesus. 

The divine Background revelation is in the 



284 God and Man 

main the coming of the Divine to the instinctive 
being of man, to his feeHngs, faiths, and intui- 
tions. But the Incarnation is above all else the 
coming of God to the mind. The Light of the 
world is God's response to the human intellect. 
This is very beautifully gathered up into a symbol 
in the "glory of the Lord" that shone round 
about the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem, 
and in the ' ' light from heaven above the bright- 
ness of the sun" that shone round about Paul 
and those that journeyed with him. 

If this be true the religion of the Incarnation 
is the religion of light. Wherever this religion 
goes truth can not be rationally slighted or human 
intelligence lightly regarded. Wherever the in- 
tellect is neglected in the interest of the feelings, 
there inevitably religion must tend to lose the 
characteristic light of the Incarnation, and to 
decline toward the instinctive religion of the first 
stage. Feeling itself can not remain high and 
pure when truth is obscured. And wherever the 
intellect is slighted in the interest of the spirit, 
there again the spiritual life will lose its necessary 
light and decline toward the spiritual status of 
the primal stage. The Holy Spirit that was 
poured out after the Incarnation was the " Spirit 
of truth," who took of the things of Christ and 
showed them unto the disciples, and so led them 
on and on into all truth. 

The final coming of God to man as divine Spirit 



God's Movement Manward 285 

is also a coming in accordance with our nature. 
It is a coming of Spirit to spirit. Nothing more 
than simple statement here is needed. 

Thus the three modes of the Self -manifestation 
of God are all in fitting accord with our human 
nature. 

They accord also with the stages of our human 
development, instinctive, intellectual, and spirit- 
ual, and with our threefold capacity to receive. 
Here again enlargement may be left to the 
thoughtful imagination. 

This is the way God comes. Let us see how 
all other realms and orders of Reality come. 
Take nature for example. She reveals herself, 
her presence and being, in the first instance, 
through a thousand pressures, contacts, com- 
merces, mainly through instinct, sense, feeling. 
By-and-by she reveals herself more and more 
in her diversity and individuality, in her varied 
beauty, in her underlying law and order, and 
in her implicit truth. Thus she makes her great 
appeal to the mind. But in and through all the 
foregoing, she leads more and more deeply and 
surely into the spirit of diversity and form, iato 
the spirit of beauty, into the spirit of law and 
harmony, and into the spirit of truth. She makes 
her deep ultimate appeal to the spirit — "Wie 
spricht ein Geist zum andern Geist." 

Take humanity. Take any parent. A mother 



286 God and Man 

reveals herself, her presence and being, to her 
child, first through instinct and sense, feeling, 
intuition, and faith. Intellect as such is little 
to the fore; spirit less. By degrees, to the child's 
and youth's awakening mind, she reveals, through 
countless extemalisations in word and deed, her 
individuality, her thought and will, her senti- 
ments and faiths, her ideals and character, — in 
a word, reveals the variety in unity of her com- 
plex personality. But in and through all these 
the real mother is seeking more and more richly 
to impart the deep spirit of her truth, the spirit 
of her ideals, the spirit of her faith, — ^the secret of 
her life. This is the course and consummation 
of every complete and full parenthood. But this 
is typical. Every life that enters into full and 
complete relationship with humanity reveals it- 
self in the same way. Think of a Plato, a Paul, 
an Augustine, a Dante, a Luther. 

The wide realm of law and order, the kingdoms 
of truth, the worlds of beauty, the starry sky of 
ideals, reveal themselves in essentially the same 
way. First they reveal their being and presence 
vaguely through the feelings. Then they rise 
with their light and truth like a growing day 
upon the mind. And then, when the proceeding 
is perfect and complete, through all the fore- 
going manifestation they pour forth their subtle 
creative spirit into man's soul. 

It is so that an art or a craft or a calling or 



God's Movement Manward 287 

any life-work reveals itself. First, the vague 
fact; next, the luminous reality; last, when the 
process is true and successful, the deep spirit. 

The worlds of science and art and music and 
poetry and philosophy come to us in the same 
way. They are all about us from our earliest 
years. They affect us through our feelings in 
ways that we only dimly realise. Later they 
define themselves in lines of light and truth to 
our awakened and fascinated minds. Thereby, 
at length, the deeper, richer spirit of science and 
art and music and poetry and philosophy imparts 
itself to our awakening souls. 

A language reveals itself to every unfolding 
life in the same way. Thus essentially every 
religion reveals itself. And thus even Christ 
reveals Himself, as we before have seen. First 
He is dimly felt; then He is consciously known; 
then and thereby, if the rich process truly com- 
pletes itself. His deep spirit is spiritually received. 
But He must first externalise Himself in count- 
less words and deeds; He must reveal Himself 
anew before our heart and mind and imagination ; 
He must, as it were, incarnate Himself again 
before our awakened consciousness, ere His deep 
spirit can be either richly given or received. 

Thus essentially all the realms and orders of 
Reality come. They must externalise themselves 
in new springs and summers, in new creations 
of art, in new dramas of life, in new triumphs 



288 God and Man 

of invention and skill, in new embodiments of 
the ideal, before they can awaken and satisfy 
man's mind, and before they can impart their 
subtle and creative spirit to his soul. 

And so God comes. And it is not strange that 
thus He comes. All creation is a kind of incar- 
nation. And Christ is the supreme and perfect 
form thereof. 

Historically this is the way God has come also 
to mankind at large, vaguely and generally. 
Nothing is more universal in the religious life 
of the race than the dim sense of the Divine as 
the ground of all existence. And in all creation 
humanity everywhere have seen more or less 
definite embodiments of the Divine. They have 
seen it in sun and stars; they have seen it 
in mountains and hills; in trees and fountains; 
in rivers and the mysterious oceans ; in the storm- 
cloud and the lightning. They have seen it in 
birds and animals and insects. They have seen 
it in their prophets and seers; in their kings and 
heroes; in their tribal ancestors and demigods. 
Every idol that ever has been set up, every an- 
cestor that has been worshipped, every human 
being that ever has been listened to as the voice 
of God, bears witness to the fact that humanity 
has thought that the Divine embodied itself and 
came near. And truly what is all creation, as 
we have said, but the externalisation, the mani- 



God's Movement Manward 289 

festation of God? Does He not clothe Himself 
with light as with a vesture? And is not nature 
the "living garment" of God? And wherever 
there have been deep souls in all the world, have 
they not yearned for something yet deeper? 
Have they not craved and vaguely prayed for 
the divine Spirit of it all? And have they not 
received according to their measure? Have the 
Socrateses and Platos, the Senecas and Epicte- 
tuses, the Buddhas and Mohammeds prayed in 
vain? "Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons: but in every nation he that 
feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is ac- 
ceptable to Him." 

It need not be said that this is the way his- 
torically God has revealed Himself to Christendom 
vividly and perfectly. The Old Testament is 
before us. The Four Gospels are open. The 
Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles and the 
long and incomparable history of the Christian 
Church are known. The divine Background is 
there revealed: 

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place 
In all generations. 

Before the mountains were brought forth, 
Or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
Even from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art 
God. 

The Incarnation is there revealed: And the 
Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we 



290 God and Man 

beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten 
from the Father) , full of grace and truth. Behold, 
a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him. 

And the divine Spirit is there poured forth: 
Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not 
many days hence. And when the day of Pente- 
cost was now come, they were all together in 
one place. And suddenly there came from heaven 
a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and 
it filled all the house where they were sitting. 
And there appeared unto them tongues parting 
asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one 
of them. And they were all filled with the Holy 
Spirit. — The divine Background — the primal re- 
velation through creation in nature and humanity ; 
the incarnate Divinity — ^the ideal-real Self -mani- 
festation of Deity; the divine Spirit — ^the final 
and perfect coming of God to man. God is 
Spirit. 

Moreover, this is the way God manifests Him- 
self still. Wherever a human being is born, God 
reveals Himself still as the divine Background 
against which all our lives are set, as they are 
set against the bosom of the mothering earth. 
And wherever life becomes full-grown, and religion 
goes forward to its unspeakably richer develop- 
ments, there God still comes to man in His Son, 
and Christ is formed within the hope of glory, 
and life knows and rejoices in its unending 



God's Movement Manward 291 

Pentecost. To multitudes this is perpetually 
profoundly true. 

What is more, I venture to think that this is 
the way God always will come to man, as long 
as human nature is human, and as long as Spirit 
speaks to and develops spirit through a created 
universe. And broadly speaking, this is the way 
all the realms and orders of Reality will come 
to us and dawn upon us as long as consciousness 
tabernacles as it does. 

Furthermore it is a remarkable thing, yet to 
a deeper view most natural, that this is the way 
humanity has prophesied God would come. 
Witness the whole history of the Jewish people. 
Witness all the reported theophanies to mankind, 
and the background of expectation, against which 
they are to be set. And in addition, as soon as 
we entered deeply into the nature of things, this 
is the way we ourselves should expect God to 
come. For how else could He come, if He is 
Spirit, and we are spirit, and all nature between, 
revealing yet concealing? 

This threefold Self -revelation, these three modes 
of manifestation — we have seen them everywhere. 
They are in the coming of God to man. They 
are in the revelations of nature. They are in 
the revelations of humanity. They are indeed 
in the revelation of a man to himself. It is, so 
to say, first the natural, then the intellectual. 



292 God and Man 

then the spiritual. If we may thus describe it, 
it is first the cruder earth and atmosphere, then 
the fiaer, higher sunHght, and then the subtle 
final ether. The ascending Spiral of the Spirit 
is in all realms. It is in nature, it is in life; it 
is in the Macrocosm, it is in the microcosm; it is 
in the general coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
It is the way all the kingdoms of Reality come 
to man, for it is the way that accords with his 
nature. It is in a word the human way. 

What now shall we say to this ? Are all things 
being accommodated to man's nature, simply? 
Does Nature come to man, and God come to 
man, and all Reality come to man in the way 
they do, simply because man is what he is? Is 
all creation a Spiral of the Spirit, and is the 
Self-manifestation of God a Spiral of the Spirit 
because man's developing life is that? Rather, 
are not the microcosm and the Macrocosm and 
the entire Self -revelation of God what they are 
because God is what He is? That there is a 
correspondent something in the deep nature of 
God, which is the reason why He utters Himself 
in this threefold manner through all the realms 
of Reality, must seem to me always the pro- 
founder and truer view. Man and nature and 
the Kingdom of Heaven are what they are because 
God is what He is. All things flow forth from 
and manifest His nature. 

The divine Background revelation, the incar- 



God's Movement Manward 293 

nate Divinity manifestation, the divine Spirit 
procession, — ^these, together and synchronously, 
make up the great Environment of man's higher 
life — the Universe of the Soul. 

Does this seem to be a formative and growing 
Universe, and one that is recent, coming into 
manifestation in the annals of time? What, we 
ask, could be more fitting to the living God, and 
what could accord better with His continuously 
creative Life? What also could be more har- 
monious with an ever-developing cosmos? and 
what more accordant with and grateful to an 
ever becoming and developing humanity? This 
is the growing Universe of the soul, the great 
higher Environment of the spirit, which is as 
necessary to man's higher life as earths and skies, 
atmospheres and sunlights, are to his lower. 

Finally in this great spiritual Environment, to 
make at last the appeal to results, all things have 
seemed possible to men. Here the heart has 
come to its true expression and the mind has 
come to flower and the soul has opened into 
beauty. In this Kingdom of Heaven, the Johns 
and the Pauls and the Magdalens and the Marys 
have been produced. By their fruits ye shall 
know them. Indeed this great higher Environ- 
ment has proved as exquisitely and perfectly 
adapted to man's higher life, as the lower atmos- 
phere to his lungs, or as light to his eyes. For, 



294 God and Man 

verily, it is the Life of God that thus has come 
near, and thus effectually has become the great 
Environment of man's soul. 

This is God's threefold Self -revelation, God's 
movement manward, His process of developing 
a full and complete man. 



CHAPTER XI 
man's progress: or man's movement godward 

OUR first or naive stage of religious develop- 
ment is the stage of instinct and feeling, 
intuition and faith. It is the hereditary stage. 
It is the stage of our childhood. It is the stage 
that has not yet differentiated itself, that still 
lives in community of life with humanity and 
God. It is the nature-stage of religion, in which 
the Divine is vaguely mingled with all the forms 
and processes of nature, and with aU the springs 
and streams of life. 

Not that our naive stage of religious development 
has no intellectual elements pervading it and no 
spiritual elements implicit in it. It has. But the 
characteristic fact is, not intellect or spirit, but 
feeling. Just as the characteristic note of child- 
hood is, not intellect or spirit, but instinct and 
feeling, intuition and faith, although intellect 
and spirit are involved in it from the beginning, 
even as youth and maturity are locked up in 
childhood's opening bud. 

Naturally the naive stage of our religious 
development corresponds with the divine Back- 

295 



296 God and Man 

ground revelation. We vaguely feel God every- 
where. We feel His presence in the vastness and 
power and reality of the Universe. We dimly 
feel Him in all the forms and processes of nature. 
We feel Him in all the life and experience of 
humanity. He comes to us through the invisible 
channels of instinct; He wells up in our hearts; 
He shines in through our intuitions; He reveals 
Himself in childhood's marvellous faiths. We see 
Him in the colours and imagery of imagination; 
our early thoughts turn readily toward Him; He 
rises upon us with our conscious dawn. 

This is the stage of the first impressions of the 
Divine, the first feelings, the first thoughts of 
God. In this stage we are one with nature and 
humanity and Divinity. We are like the young 
acorn on the mother tree. The growing acorn 
is one with the parent tree, with the earth be- 
neath, with the sky above, and with the atmos- 
phere around. It has not yet broken with its 
early environment. It holds its original con- 
nection with nature. The vitality of the earth 
pours into it through the parent roots. The 
atmosphere and rain and sunbeams penetrate it 
through the leaves of the parent tree. Earth 
and sky and atmosphere are in all its being, but 
they come into it through unbroken and original 
parent channels. It is still one with nature like 
any child. True the time must come when it 
must break with the mother tree for very self- 



Man's Movement Godward 297 

hood's sake. It must break with its original 
nature connections. It must fall and touch the 
earth for itself. It must send down its own 
roots into the great world. It must make new 
connections with the sources and draw vitality 
therefrom for itself. It must lift itself up with 
its own stem and spread out branches and put 
forth many leaves for itself, thus again making 
new connection with the vast sources, with atmos- 
phere and rain and quickening sun. And unless 
these new connections with heaven and earth are 
made, there is no "to-morrow" for it. All this 
is true, and these things must come to pass. But 
that time is not yet. For the present it is simply 
a young acorn on the mother tree, living at one 
with all nature like any child. 

This naive stage of our religious development 
is very important. It is difficult to overstate its 
significance. Like childhood, it contains within 
itself all future growth. It is the fundamental 
revelation of God in human life. All that God 
has taught man through vast nature is essen- 
tially represented there. All that man has learned 
of God through untold generations and expe- 
riences is in a manner there contained. It is 
the background of all possible religious life and 
achievement. To this primal revelation Paul, 
speaking to the Epicurean and Stoic philoso- 
phers, appealed. To this John G. Paton appealed, 
in the South Sea Islanders. To this Jesus 



298 God and Man 

appealed, talking to the cultured Nicodemus, or 
to the peasants of Galilee. Without this elemen- 
tary revelation indeed no higher voices could be 
heard or heeded. Except man first read nature's 
Bible, he will read no other. Except God first 
be present in the heart of man, even Jesus will 
speak in vain. Except we first are children, we 
never shall be men. 

Childhood is indispensable, but no growing life 
remains in perpetual childhood. Normal life 
develops from the first religious stage into the 
second. We pass out of the stage of feeling into 
the stage of knowledge; out of the vague into the 
definite; out of dim general consciousness into 
clear specific consciousness ; out of the undifferen- 
tiated into the differentiated ; out of the universal 
into the particular; out of community into in- 
dividuality; out of union into polarity; again, 
out of polarity into higher union; and in general 
out of instinctive experience into highly conscious, 
voluntary, and profound experience. 

This is the evolution of the normal religious 
life from the first stage of feeling to the second 
stage of knowledge. It is a complex growth. 
It is many things in one. Looked at in one way, 
it is a development out of the vague into the 
definite, out of dim and general consciousness 
into clear and specific consciousness. Looked at 
in another way, it is development out of the 



Man's Movement Godward 299 

undifferentiated into the differentiated, from the 
universal into the particular, from community 
of life into individuality. Looked at in still 
another way, it is development out of union 
into polarity; again out of polarity into a 
higher union, and from vague, instinctive experi- 
ence into highly conscious, voluntary, and pro- 
found experience. 

Here we have the natural growth of every 
healthy religious life. It is our advance from 
childhood to adulthood; progress from the dawn 
to the full day of consciousness ; development out 
of community of life into sharp individuality and 
polarity. Thus it is a bringing of the definite 
self face-to-face with its clear vision and task; 
then a willing devotion to the heavenly vision; 
and then a new and higher union with God; 
so of course a profounder and richer religious 
experience. 

The boy that was led by his father's hand now 
stands forth a man. He looks out over the world. 
He sees life's far vision. He is conscious of him- 
self and of power. He solemnly dedicates his 
life. No longer is he a child, living in community 
of life. He has separated and rounded into self- 
hood. No longer are all things mingled in the 
undifferentiated unity of feeling. Everything has 
become clear and pronounced in the growing light 
of consciousness and knowledge. The individual 
stands forth in his polarity, facing the world. 



300 God and Man 

Conscious of himself and of God, he consecrates 
his life. 

Whatever else forms part of our progress from 
the first stage into the second, the characteristic 
quality of it is development into more and more 
clear consciousness and knowledge. Other things 
naturally attend. But the characteristic note of 
life is consciousness, as the characteristic note 
of the day is light; and the mark of adulthood 
is high developed consciousness. Without con- 
sciousness, we sleep. Without high conscious- 
ness, we are impotent. And the man-like will 
and deed can follow only the man-like conscious- 
ness and knowledge. God first turns on the light 
in the inner world as He first turns on the light 
in the outer. Thereafter, the high resolve, and 
many other things may follow. We may rise 
to our life-work then, as we rise to our daily task 
when day has come. 

Now this second or knowledge stage of our 
religious development corresponds to the Incar- 
nation. We said above that Christ is the great 
approach of the Divine to the awakened con- 
sciousness of man. We now say that this know- 
ledge stage of our development is the human 
correspondent thereto. 

Let us plunge into the midst of things and see 
whether this is really true, for we here have a 
cardinal statement. 

Let Jesus then stand face -to -face with the 



Man's Movement Godward 301 

rich young man of the Gospels. That young 
man represents awakened consciousness, vivid 
knowledge, pronounced individuality, and sharp 
polarity of life, as he stands facing the Son of 
man. Christ looking upon him says : ' ' Behold me ; 
know me; choose me; follow me for ever." It is 
an appeal to all his awakened being. It is not 
an appeal to the mere surface of the intellect. 
It is to the whole mind, the whole will, the whole 
soul. The Divine now is no longer vague, it is 
perfectly definite. It is no longer general, it is 
absolutely specific and particular. Jesus' indi- 
viduality is as sharp and pronoimced as his own. 
When this clear divine Personality makes its great 
demand, when it speaks the words of the great 
imperative, saying, "Follow me; I am the way, 
and the truth, and the life; follow me," it is a 
moment of supreme and comprehensive conscious- 
ness; it is an appeal to the total awakened life. 
It is a definite coming of the God of light to the 
awakened and responsible mind of man. And 
when the rich young man turned his face away 
from Jesus and went away sorrowful, he knew 
that God was making a demand upon him that 
was perfectly definite. He understood that it 
meant his whole nature, from top to bottom. He 
knew that the religious life ultimately is no mere 
vague and general affair, but something as clear 
sind definite as the giving of his own individual 
.soul in absolute and loving devotion for ever 



302 God and Man 

to the personality of Jesus as Lord. Had he 
stood the test, had he said his everlasting " Yea" 
to God, it would have meant an awakened intel- 
lect, an awakened heart, an awakened soul, an 
awakened will, consecrated for ever. It would 
have meant a new and higher alliance with the 
Divine. It would have meant a transcendence 
of his narrow individuality. In a word, the losing 
of his life and the finding of a larger life. 

Here, if ever, is a transaction in the clear and 
open day. Things are no longer in the sub- 
conscious realm of instinct, and no longer in the 
twilight dawn of feeling. On the one hand the 
Divine has become as definite as the face of 
Jesus. On the other hand the human has become 
as individual as that rich young man whom Jesus 
loved. All heaven has approached and appealed 
to life in the light of that divine face. All our 
awakened consciousness is responding there, either 
in acceptance or rejection. It is as though the 
world of beauty and art gathered itself up in a 
glorious picture and unveiled itself before the 
awakened soul of some young artist; then as 
though that young artist felt through all his 
being the divine appeal, and understood that 
the call was to his total nature, and knew that 
it was for life. The Incarnation is the coming 
of God in truth and light to the awakened con- 
sciousness of man. The knowledge stage of reli- 
gious growth is our human response thereto. 



Man's Movement Godward 303 

Jesus, face-to-face with the rich young man or 
in the centre of His disciple group, is asking for 
conscious discipleship. 

Let us look at this with searching scrutiny. 
Here we deal with a stage of religious develop- 
ment of surpassing importance. The Incarnation 
is the appeal of the definite Divine to the definite 
human. The second stage of our religious devel- 
opment is the response of the definite human to 
the definite Divine. Jesus is the Divine become 
definite. The rich young man or the young John 
or the yoimg Saul is the human developed into 
definite individuality. Nothing could be more 
specific than the Divine has become in the indi- 
viduality of Jesus. Nothing could be more specific 
than the human, as it stands there in defined 
selfhood, a distinct centre of life, sharp and clear 
in its individuality. The Divine indeed is as 
defined as the face of Jesus. The human is as 
sharp and clear as the striking individuality of 
the young Saul. On the one hand the Divine 
speaks in the definiteness of human words, acts 
in the definiteness of human deeds, and reveals 
itself in the unique definiteness of individuality. 
On the other hand the human stands with awak- 
ened consciousness, distinct selfhood, and defined 
individuality, aware of itself as a centre of high 
life, will, and power. Jesus and Saul, the definite 
Divine appealing to the definite human. And 
when the Divine thus comes to the human, making 



304 God and Man 

its great clear claim upon life, and when the 
human thus responds to the Divine, offering up 
its conscious selfhood, then we have the perfect 
call of God and the fitting response of man. 

This perfect appeal of the definite Divine to 
the definite human, and this fitting response of 
the human to the Divine is the making of the 
religious life. It is the attainment of the second 
stage of progress. It is the achievement of indi- 
viduality in religion. The marked individuality 
of Saul, face-to-face with the definite personality 
of Jesus, consciously offers up the man he is in 
total and irreversible devotion. It is the making 
of him. Saul becomes Paul. That clear self- 
hood, that pronoimced individuality, with awak- 
ened consciousness, power, and freedom, beholds 
the Christ, and consecrates himself irreversibly 
for ever. It is the man's response to God. It is 
the great response of htmian individuality to the 
definite Divinity that spoke in Jesus. It is the 
attainment of individuality, the coming to one's 
majority in the life religious. It is the making 
of Paul, or Luther, or Phillips Brooks. 

Unless the Divine thus appeals to the human, 
and unless the human thus responds to the Di- 
vine, — unless human individuality in the full tide 
of its selfhood consciously devotes itself, there 
is no possible growth; there can be no possible 
advance from the first religious stage to the 
second. 



Man's Movement Godward 305 

It is with the reUgious life as it is with the 
poet's Hfe. Out of the universal truth, the uni- 
versal beauty, the universal goodness, definite 
pictures of the true, the beautiful, and the good 
rise in the field of vision and reveal themselves 
to the soul of the young poet. There too the 
perfect picture of the ideal poem rises and mani- 
fests itself in lines of light and shade, in delicate 
harmonies of colour, and in inner unity of thought 
and plan. It is the call of the ideal world. The 
young poet, with the deep fire kindling within, 
with nature as sensitive to all influences as the 
harp to the breath of the winds, and with soul 
awaking to truth and beauty and excellence 
everywhere, beholds the vision. He looks long 
in awe and exaltation. He feels through all his 
being the charm and call of the eternal ideal. 
Solemnly he dedicates his life, and becomes a 
priest of Beauty for ever. It is the definite 
summons of the ideal world. It is the definite 
response of the awakened being of the poet. 

Let it now be the young artist, or the young 
composer, or the young actor, or the young 
scholar. The story is the same. It is the appeal 
of the defiaite vision to the definite and awak- 
ened individualit}^ It is the same with the 
physician, or the mechanic, the citizen, the pa- 
triot, or the lover. The life-work gathers itself 
up into a clear call. The life and spirit of the 
nation gather into a specific demand for the ideal 



3o6 God and Man 

patriot and citizen. The realm of human love 
and parenthood gathers into a call for the true 
lover and parent. In all the fields of life it is 
the appeal of the specific to the specific. 

Naturally it is so with religion. In the Incar- 
nation we see it ia its perfect form. God reveals 
Himself in the clear personality of Jesus. The 
summons is to the awakened consciousness, the 
full-blown individuality of man. 

Everywhere it is the definite alone that can 
appeal to and develop the definite. It is the 
definite sun, not the undifferentiated nebula, that 
brings spring and specific growth to the life of 
man. It is the definite earth, the definite seas 
and continents, the definite trees and flowers, 
animals and human beings, that awake and de- 
velop the specific thought, love, deed, life, in us. 
Infinite sameness never could brood and call 
forth the particular anywhere. 

God accordingly externalises and reveals Him- 
self in infinite variety of forms, in serial and 
ascending ranks and orders, from the lowest differ- 
entiated minerals up to the highest differentiated 
men, who show forth the perfect differentiation 
of human individuality. Everywhere it is the 
particular calling to the particular, the higher 
ranges to the higher powers, from the solid earth 
up to the ethereal sunbeam, from the mew of a 
kitten to the articulate human voice, from the 
breast at which the babe nurses to the brooding 



Man's Movement Godward 307 

spirit of the mother life. This is the way God 
develops eye, ear, hand, heart, intellect, soul, of 
man. In the endless varieties of nature, in the 
supreme individualisations of mankind, He ap- 
pears. He speaks with myriad voices to our 
many-sided human life, but always it is the 
definite calling to the definite. At last on the 
hilltop of creation, in these our fields of space 
and time, Jesus stands, the crown and summit 
of the definite, the perfect manifestation of the 
particular. It is the supreme externalisation of 
God. It is the unique approach and appeal of 
the definite Divine to the definite human. What 
God has done partially and imperfectly in stars 
and earths, in flowers and human beings, and 
in special seers and prophets, He has done per- 
fectly in His Son. 

And when, over against the figure of this 
"strong Son of God," human life stands forth 
in the early strength of manhood, in the defi- 
niteness of selfhood, in the uniqueness of individ- 
uality, and in the fulness of consciousness, and 
dedicates itself to discipleship and apostleship 
for ever, it is the perfect response of the human 
to the Divine. The young John at the Jordan, 
the young Paul on the way to Damascus, the 
young Augustine in Milan, face-to-face with the 
Christ and the great clear call of God, solemnly 
dedicate themselves. With one supreme con- 
secration that includes a thousand others, and 



3o8 God and Man 

in an exaltation of consciousness that involves 
the whole awakened life, they devote themselves 
to God, as the young Darwin devotes himself 
to science, or the young Washington to his 
country. It is the response of the definite human 
to the definite Divine, of our humanity when it 
has come to man's estate, to Divinity as it has 
come to us in Christ. It is the second stage of 
our movement Godward, the second stage of our 
religious development. 

There remains the fiaal stage of our religious 
progress. We all know what a spiritual face is 
and a spiritual life, but they are not easily put 
into words. When, however, that which is deepest 
in us has permeated and leavened all life and 
come to the surface; when that which is purest 
and most divine has come to the throne and 
wields dominion and holds all the lower life in 
a perfect harmony of control ; when the individu- 
alistic ego has been overcome and transcended 
and taken up into the higher and larger Universal; 
when the sharp polarity of life has been raised 
and finely resolved iato a new and perfect unity; 
when acute self-consciousness has been elevated 
into clear and abiding God-consciousness; when 
we have made indeed the great revolution of 
conscious experience and passed thereby into the 
deep mystery and soul of things; and when the 
Divine finally comes to the human in its pure 



Man's Movement Godward 309 

and essential Divinity and Spirit freely flows to 
spirit; then at length we have reached the third 
and ultimate stage of our religious development. 
It is the spiritualising and glorifying of life. It 
is life coming to its potential best. It is more 
than the first stage of feeling, though it includes 
it. It is more than the second stage of awak- 
ened and devoted consciousness, though it in- 
cludes that also. It is the whole life elevated 
into the beauty of holiness. A spiritual face 
is the most beautiful thing ever looked upon. 
A spiritual life is the crowning excellence of the 
world. 

It is obvious that this spiritual stage of our 
development corresponds to the divine Self- 
revelation as Spirit. 

Spirit, as here we know it, is no longer a diffused 
and attenuated something; it is no longer im- 
palpable and fugitive, no longer vague and elusive, 
dimly suggesting its subtle presence everywhere, 
but adequately revealing its rich reality nowhere. 
On the contrary, it is a full and opulent life, the 
Reality of realities, the Holy Spirit of the final 
divine revelation. 

The divine Background revelation, as we have 
observed, moved from the vague toward the 
definite. The incarnate Divinity also developed 
from the vague into the definite. And the divine 
Spirit likewise has evolved from the vague into 
the definite. The Jewish people, on the highlands 



3IO God and Man 

of the Old Testament, knew more of the di- 
vine Background than others. The disciples of 
Jesus knew far more of the Incarnation than 
the Jews had been taught or had divined. And 
the hundred and twenty in the Upper Room knew 
manifold more of the Holy Spirit than ever they 
had learned before. Even Spirit moved toward 
the rich definiteness of Pentecost. 

Over against all this the same process obtains 
in our human world. The naive stage of our 
religious development has unfolded from the vague 
toward the definite. The stage of awakened con- 
sciousness likewise has developed from the vague 
into the specific. And the human spirit as well 
has developed out of the dim and vague into the 
clear and definite. The ripened spiritual life is 
the full rich human personality. It includes the 
preceding stages of feeling and awakened con- 
sciousness and transcends them. They are mo- 
ments in its rich and complete life. The spiritual 
is the full and complete man. 

We have then our human life in the full richness 
of spiritual personality, over against and corre- 
sponding to the divine Life disclosed in its fulness 
as Spirit. 

It is a most interesting fact, far-reaching in 
implicates and suggestion, that in the field of 
human progress and in the realm of divine revela- 
tion, all development is from the undifferentiated 



Man's Movement Godward 311 

toward the differentiated. We follow thus the 
universal law of progress, from the development 
of a plant or animal to the growth of a world, 
or the making of a solar system, or the evolution 
of a cosmos. The tree that does not halt but 
grows from seedling into grand and waving form, 
bearing blossoms and fruit; the animal that does 
not stop but develops into the full and complex 
life of matured form and function; a formless 
earth that does not stay in its progress but steadily 
moves toward those differentiated seas and con- 
tinents which constitute a habitable world; a 
nebulous solar mass unfolding into the grand 
variety in unity of a superb stellar system; an 
undifferentiated waste of matter that, without 
rest, evolves toward that infinite and harmonious 
variety in unity which makes a cosmos — this is 
what constitutes a developed and real tree, or 
animal, or world, or solar system, or Universe. 
Likewise the religious life which, unarrested in 
its development, unfolds and unfolds toward the 
rich variety in unity of the full-grown man, is 
the true and complete and the only true and 
complete human life. Likewise also the divine 
Self-revelation which, not stopping short with the 
vague and indefinite primal stage, steadily moves 
forward, disclosing its own uniquely perfect va- 
riety in unity, is the developed and complete, 
and the only developed and complete, divine 
revelation and theology. 



312 God and Man 

In the above, glimpses at least of a very wide 
generalisation have been seen. The foregoing 
three stages in their essential nature and in their 
main outlines appear indeed in all progress. 
Wherever human life develops in a normal and 
true way in relation to any realm of reality, it 
ripens through the same essential stages. It 
matters not here what realm we look toward, 
nor what kindred side of human life we study, 
in its responsive growth. But, inasmuch as music 
and art always have been felt to be closely related 
to religion, let us see how life develops there. 

The young musician subtly feels through all 
his being the harmony of existence. The chords 
of his nature readily vibrate in unison with all 
the spheres. Instinctively, like a harp in the 
winds, he murmurs music to himself. It is the 
nascent period, the stage of all beginnings. It 
is the young Haydn, already feeling the imder- 
lying music of the world, and quivering with the 
preludes of song. 

But no one certainly who lingers in this in- 
stinctive stage of feeling ever can be a musician. 
The real musician must awake first through all 
the ranges of his life; he must unfold the hidden 
and complex involutions of his being; he must 
circle through life's great revolution of conscious 
experience; he must penetrate also with under- 
standing mind far into the nature of music; and 
with awakened and exalted consciousness, he 



Man's Movement Godward 313 

must survey her glorious world and comprehend 
her subtle meaning and message. Life here as 
elsewhere must come to its full and conscious 
day, and the radiant world must reveal its 
variety and change in the midst of abiding 
unity. 

But again no one who tarries here can be a 
true musician. The real musician must penetrate 
deep into the soul of music. Through her varied 
forms and ranges, through her self -manifestations, 
through the elaborations of her life, through her 
many themes, through all her meanings and mes- 
sages, he must enter into her inmost spirit, he 
must dwell in the hidden soul and mystery of 
music. Not until he has passed into the deep 
spirit of harmony and the spirit has passed into 
him, awaking his profoundest life, giving him, 
not merely the comprehensions and experiences 
of the awakened consciousness, but also and 
supremely the spiritual appreciations and ex- 
periences of the awakened and developed soul, 
does he become the true and real musician. 

What has been said of music is no less true 
of art. He is not yet an artist in whom the 
passion for beauty is only beginning to kindle 
like the latent fires of youth. Nor is he yet an 
artist whose eesthetic consciousness, and little 
more, has awakened and unfolded, even though 
he be exquisitely sensitive and discriminating. 
He only is an artist who through all this has 



314 God and Man 

passed into the deep spirit of art and thereby 
has developed his own artistic soul. 

The same is true of the scientist, or poet, or 
philosopher. It is first the naive, instinctive stage 
of feeling, then the stage of awakened and devoted 
consciousness, and then the developed spiritual 
stage. 

The same is true of all departments of life. 
It is true of the farmer or the lawyer, of the 
artificer or the statesman. It is true of citizen- 
ships and patriotisms. It is true of all friend- 
ships, loves, parenthoods, and philanthropies. It 
is true of education and culture, and of every 
developed civilisation. In a word, wherever hu- 
man life stands face -to -face with any realm of 
reality, and ia response thereto grows and unfolds 
toward normal maturity, it passes through the 
same essential stages. Indeed they are the natu- 
ral and true stages of all human growth. They 
are life's childhood, life's youth, and life's full 
maturity. 

In truth, I am convinced that it would be found 
impossible for a human being to make the pas- 
sage from infancy to life's three-score-and-ten 
without at least dimly outlining all of the stages, 
even the last. And this, notwithstanding that 
the individual in question might be the antipode 
of all developed and true spirituality. So deeply 
human are the stages of our religious development, 
so essentially normal is our Higher Life. 



Man's Movement Godward 315 

It comes to this: the stages of our religious 
growth are the three human stages raised to their 
highest possibiHty; the spirituaHsation of Hfe is 
really the humanisation of life; and the true 
humanisation of life is the spirituaHsation of it. 

In this development of a life, this achievement 
of the three stages of human growth, this evolving 
and making of a full and complete man, there 
is a great essential process that cannot be too 
clearly brought to the light of day. It is the 
early union, the later polarity, and the final 
higher union of a life with every realm of Reality 
in relation to which it consciously develops. 

Let us look at life as it develops in relation 
to law. The little child at its mother's breast 
is one with humanity, one with nature, one with 
God. It is in accord with universal law. As 
yet it has no selfhood to separate it into the 
polarity of conscious life. In process of time, 
however, it has rounded into selfhood, it has come 
to stand over against its world in the sharpness 
of individuality, with the pronounced polarity of 
awakened and developed consciousness and will. 
It has attained the explicit subject-object stage, 
indispensable to unfolding consciousness. Now 
law is as sharp and clear on the one side as will 
is on the other — law everywhere in the depths 
and in the heights. And now this cosmic and di- 
vine law speaks from its many Sinais, everywhere 



3i6 God and Man 

saying to conscious will, "Thou shalt." While 
conscious will, for its part, realises that it is 
face-to-face with Authority, and with life's in- 
finite alternatives. It is the normal and neces- 
sary polarity of conscious will and law that here 
we see. 

But this is not the end. This is not intended 
to be the final stage. It is meant that every 
man reverently should go up into life's Sinai and 
there, alone with God, solemnly and joyously 
should receive the divine law for himself, and, 
pressing it close to his obedient heart, like Moses, 
should return again to the fields of toil and duty 
with shining face. Then man enters into the 
final higher union with all cosmic and divine 
law, which is, as well, the deep law of his own 
being. Then law is taken into the heart of man, 
and law and will become one, and divine law 
becomes divine life. 

The naive instinctive stage of feeling; the stage 
of the awakened and devoted consciousness; the 
developed spiritual stage: early union, later po- 
larity, final higher union. But it is to be marked 
that this final higher union is a vastly different thing 
from that initial lower union. This is conscious, 
voluntary, comprehensive, rich. This is attained 
only by circling through the great revolution of 
conscious experience, which alone evolves and 
makes human individuality. 

But again right in the midst of this progres- 



Man's Movement Godward 317 

sion there is a crisis, a natural and necessary 
crisis, momentous to life. Unless the conscious 
ego, unless the pronounced individuality, unless 
the sharply developed will subordinates itself to 
universal law, unless selfishness changes into serv- 
ice, there can be no third stage, there can be 
no final higher union. 

Essentially the same evolution and the same 
crisis are seen everywhere. They are seen in 
the relation of the individual to humanity. The 
little boy in his father's home; the prodigal turn- 
ing his back upon that home and going away 
into the far country ; the repentant son returning 
and meeting his father and in humility saying, 
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and in 
thy sight," then receiving the kiss of welcome 
and reconciliation: early union, later separation, 
final higher union. And the crisis, "when he 
came to himself"; "I am not worthy"; "I will 
arise and go to my father." 

In no other way can any individual enter into 
full, rich relationship with humanity. This is 
the way essentially every true neighbour or friend 
or brother or philanthropist has been produced. 
This is the way the human individual normally 
develops into the human socius, passes into the 
final higher union with humanity, unfolds into 
the perfect stage of love. 

Early union,- later polarity, final higher union, 
with the momentous formative crisis in the midst, 



3i8 God and Man 

is the story of every developing life as it unfolds 
in relation to any realm of Reality. It would 
be easy to show that it is the story of the making 
of every true artist or composer or poet or scien- 
tist or philosopher; of the making of every true 
physician or jurist; every true citizen or states- 
man ; every true mechanic or captain of industry ; 
soldier or commander; patriot or leader. The 
man who does not victoriously rise above self, 
in supreme devotion to beauty or harmony or 
ideals or nature or truth or law or work or right 
or country or humanity, can not be the true or 
developed man anywhere. The true and great 
man is the great true servant. And he alone 
truly serves who deeply loves. This is the per- 
fect final union, won through battle, costly but 
glorious. 

It is not strange nor accidental that this crisis 
must be. It is as normal and necessary as the 
life-process itself. It is involved in the nature 
of consciousness. It is inherent in the developed 
subject-object form of human awareness. It is 
inseparable from selfhood, indispensable to high 
individuality. Our individualistic ego can not be 
overcome without a crisis. Self-consciousness can 
not pass into God-consciousness, selfishness can 
not rise into service, without it. No rich complex 
centre of life anywhere can stand out in pro- 
nounced polarity facing the World-All, then 
transcend itself, resolving its individualistic 



Man's Movement God ward 319 

polarity into a higher unity, without self-sacrifice. 
Selfishness is not overcome without a crisis; it 
is not changed into generosity without a battle. 
Indeed the crisis is the transition itself from 
self -consciousness and self-seeking into God-con- 
sciousness and service of the All. 

If early union, later polarity, and final higher 
richer union is the story of the making of the 
full-grown artist or poet or artisan or philan- 
thropist, or what we will, because it is the story 
of the making of the full-grown human being, 
and if no artist can give himself with perfect 
abandon to beauty as long as he is selfish; and 
no scientist can devote himself with single eye 
to truth while he is selfish; and no patriot can 
lose himself in high devotion to country if he 
is still selfish ; and if, in the very nature of selfish- 
ness, it can not be overcome without the crisis 
of battle, sharp and signal as well as prolonged 
and progressively victorious, much more is all 
this true on the high religious plane. 

The child is at one with God as it is one with 
the home and with nature. The grown youth 
stands out in the polarity of individuality, in the 
separateness of selfhood, with developed human 
will over against revealed divine Will. The full- 
grown life has come to the higher, richer union 
with the Divine. Its individualistic polarity has 
been resolved into a higher unity, through the 
marriage of the human will with the will of God. 



320 God and Man 

The true and complete man has climbed the 
mountain of his own ego and stands at length 
with victorious feet on its summit, while the 
mountain of self is underneath and overcome. 
Standing in splendid triumph there, now he can 
look away from self and unhindered see the great 
world and the vast sky, and now heaven and 
earth for him can come together in a new and 
higher union. But the hard climbing had to come 
first, and first the victorious feet had to stand 
on the summit of a vanquished self. 

Early union, later polarity, and final higher 
union, we repeat, with the crisis and the conquest 
that make the last and greatest possible — this is 
what we see in making the full-grown religious 
life as in making the full-grown aesthetic, or civic, 
or social life, or human life in general. Only 
here the stages are more developed and marked, 
the crisis is more momentous and pronounced. 
Here the highest evolution of life takes place, so the 
clearest differentiation ; here as well the total be- 
ing is involved, and so we have the supreme crisis. 

And this crisis, this transition, this dying to 
live, this losing self and finding God, this emerg- 
ing out of the littler into the larger life, is itself 
the deep process of conversion, is the great and 
profound change that Jesus named the new birth. 
And obedience to this law of the larger, higher 
life is righteousness. And disobedience to this 
higher divine law is sin. 



Man's Movement Godward 321 

The above then is what we see when we view 
a life as it develops in relation to its environment, 
in response to its higher divine Universe. 

But life may be studied in another way. It 
may be viewed as it grows and develops in itself. 
Then we have the three stages; human childhood, 
human individuality, human personality. 

Already we have made the first so clear that 
we leave it with the bare mention, not forgetting, 
however, that it is the indispensable background 
of everything. Already too the second stage has 
become so familiar that we merely point to it 
as the prominent figure and focal centre of life's 
picture. It is the young Sir Galahad, in the 
splendour of young manhood, consciously kneeling 
for the dedication of life. Without this strong 
and pronounced individuality, once for all we 
say, there could be no strong, rich religious or 
Eesthetic or industrial or social or human life. 

The third stage, human personality, we must 
dwell upon. When the young poet solemnly 
dedicates himself to the service of the true, the 
beautiful, and the good, and gives back in great 
poems what they gave to him in great vision 
and inspiration, then he becomes a poet. When 
the young soldier gathers up his energies and 
talents and reverently lays them upon the altar 
of his country, rendering back in patriotic and 
heroic service the gifts that he has received, then 



322 God and Man 

he becomes a soldier. And when the human 
individual, in the kingliness of individuality, 
stands face-to-face with God and His Universe, 
and, reverently gathering up his total powers and 
life, solemnly and joyously dedicates them to 
God and man, rendering back in high and endur- 
ing service the talents with which he had been 
entrusted, then he becomes a human being, then 
he fills out the full idea of a man; he then, and 
only then, attains to human personality. 

Man must make the great return. He must 
take his life and all his gifts and lay them back 
into the hand of God. Voluntarily he must set 
himself into all his worlds; into nature and into 
humanity and into the higher worlds of law, 
truth, beauty, ideals. Spirit. Failing this he 
fails of proper humanity. How true this is and 
how growingly clear. Man stands forth on the 
hilltop of the world, looking up into God's sky. 
There he is in the magnificence of his powers. 
Heaven and earth have bestowed the largess of 
their gifts upon him. God and humanity have 
endued him with faculties almost divine. He 
is a treasury of talents. But now he must make 
the great return. He must give back magnifi- 
cently. He must set himself freely into all worlds. 
He must render back his splendid gifts in splendid 
works. Failing this he fails of essential humanity. 
That which makes the mirror is the reflection; 
that which makes the man is the return. 



Man's Movement God ward 323 

Here we have before us the fundamental func- 
tions of the biological world, receptivity and 
activity. We have the Universe pouring its mul- 
titude of gifts into life, and we have life giving 
back to the Universe those gifts in the multi- 
plicities of action. But it is the latter, it is 
action, that makes life more than animal, that 
makes it definitively human. When man takes 
his multitudinous gifts, and, in the superior human 
way, pours them out in high service toward the 
great Sources, then he becomes man, but not 
till then. 

Incisive and austere as this law is, I believe 
it to be psychologically and philosophically true. 
When all the gifts of God have been concentred 
in the life of man and placed at the bidding of 
his most sovereign will, they simply spell, " Oppor- 
tunity." But when he freely takes them and 
relates them to the All, and in noble service re- 
flects them back again, then he becomes the 
mirror of God, and so a man. It is essentially 
this relating of life to the All, this placing of 
the human imprimatur of great return upon life's 
action, that constitutes human living and human 
life. The fruit tree is not a fruit tree, until it 
blossoms and bears fruit, giving back to nature 
and humankind what they have entrusted to it. 
The ship is not a ship, until it gives itself to the 
ocean, rendering back to trade and humanity the 
gifts that they have given to it. The engine is 



324 God and Man 

not an engine, until it has set itself upon the 
track and rolled out across a continent, rendering 
back in units of work performed the coal that 
was put into its furnace and the skill that was 
put into its wheels. So man is not man, until 
he makes the great return. 

And this is what we have described as achieving 
personality. Hence the personalisation of life is 
really the humanisation of life; and the true 
humanisation of life is the personalisation of it. 
But we saw above that the spiritualisation of 
life also is the humanisation of it. Therefore the 
personalisation and the spiritualisation of life are 
the true humanisation of it. So it follows finally 
that the achieving of spiritual personality is the 
coming to a full-grown human life, to a true and 
complete man. 

The naive instinctive stage of feeling; the stage 
of awakened and devoted consciousness; the final 
spiritual stage: early union; later separation or 
polarity; final higher union, with the supreme 
crisis of self -conquest in the midst: childhood, 
individuality, personality, — this as we have seen 
is the story of our human progress, these are the 
stages of our movement God ward. 



CHAPTER XII 

man's true life in god 

WE have climbed the mountain summit where 
heaven and earth come together. We 
have seen the Divine and the human meet in a 
new and higher union. There is then a supernal 
alliance and a higher life for man. This is at 
once the sublime and the inexhaustible fact of 
our human existence. 

There is a higher union with God. Man may 
give himself unreservedly with glorious abandon; 
he can pour out his thought toward God; he can 
pour forth his love, that wells out of the depths 
of his life like a sweet spring; he can devote his 
will; he can work in unison with God; he can 
become one in spirit with Him; he can appre- 
ciate the divineness of the Divine ; through purity 
of heart, he can see God and can feel His living 
presence. In truth, he can open his life wide 
to God and receive the ' ' mind that was in Christ ' ' ; 
God may pour His thought into him; His word 
may have free course in his life; His will may be 
done; His love may be shed abroad within; the 
Holy Spirit in fulness may come. And when 

325 



326 God and Man 

this rich life has become a reality; when man's 
prayer is unhindered and his commimion is full 
and free and childhood to God has become the 
jewel of his existence and God's fatherhood has 
become an abounding fact and the Spirit bears 
witness with his spirit that he is a child of God; 
when in the depths of his life he feels at one with 
the Divine and feels at home, then he has achieved 
indeed the higher union. 

There is nothing so ample and glorious in 
existence as this higher union with the Divine, 
nothing that finds our life in such deep ways, 
nothing so truly and profoundly homelike and 
natural. It is as though the orange tree were 
carried back to its home in the sunny Southland, 
or as though a continent were rolled into the 
warmth and luxuriance of spring, or as though 
a lark left the lowly earth and finding its wings 
soared into the sea of blue thrilling with song, 
or as though a life went up into its appointed 
Mount of Transfiguration. And there is nothing 
so real, so convincingly and satisfyingly real; for 
there is nothing that so fills all the heights and 
horizons of being, imparting the sense of bound- 
less reality. Thoughts of God may become as 
natural as the river of truth that courses through 
the mind. Love toward God may prove as native 
as affection to the human heart. Prayer may 
become as natural as breathing, high service as 
native as will and action. The divine Life may 



Man's True Life in God 327 

flow through us as naturally as blood through 
our veins and the inspirations of God come like 
heaven's quickening light. As the sailor may 
make his home on the wide seas, and the 
astronomer his home ia the starry skies, and 
the artist in the world of beauty, and the phi- 
losopher in the universe of truth, so the child of 
God may make his home in his Heavenly Father's 
house. All worlds are his worlds to live in di- 
vinely. Nature and humanity, law and truth, 
beauty and ideals, and universal Spirit are his 
intended abode. He can live like a child of the 
Highest at home in the Highest, and thus come 
to discover the Divine everywhere and dwell 
in it. 

This is the life Jesus lived. This is the life 
He taught His disciples to live. And this is the 
meaning of the great fact of the promised Spirit. 
Life was to be indwelt. It was to realise itself 
as spirit, and live without end an inspired life 
in the infinite Environment of perfecting Spirit. 
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you 
another Paraclete, that he may be with you for 
ever, even the Spirit of truth." " I am the vine, 
ye are the branches. Abide in me, and I in you." 
" If a man love me, he will keep my word: and 
my Father will love him, and We will come unto 
him, and make Our abode with him." Thus 
though a man's feet press the solid earth his true 
citizenship may be in heaven. This is the life 



328 God and Man 

that is hid with Christ in God, and the Hfe that 
is "Hfe indeed." 

The statement that man can enter into new 
and higher union with the Divine strikes us as 
strange at first. But consider the apple tree in 
winter. It is then connected with nature it is 
true. Its roots have hold of the earth. Its trunk 
is in touch with the sunbeams. They pierce it 
through and through and keep it alive. Other- 
wise it would freeze to its centre. Yet how dif- 
ferent is its connection later. When it comes to 
put forth leaves it makes new and higher union 
with atmosphere and sunlight and falling rain. 
And when at length it bursts into bloom and 
spreads out delicate petals with texture finer than 
silk, again it makes new and higher connections 
with light and air and dew. Its more exquisite 
organs form subtler unions. And not only these, 
but the roots themselves enter into new and 
richer commerce with the earth. Contrast, there- 
fore, the apple tree in December with the same 
tree in May. Its connections have become ines- 
timably more numerous, ampler, and finer. If a 
tree then can enter into new and higher commerce 
with heaven and earth, can not our human nature 
with its vastly wider ranging gamut of powers 
enter into new and higher union with God and 
His worlds? It can. Human nature too only 
waits for its spring, for its renaissance and flower- 
ing. But every spring and summer is from above, 



Man's True Life in God 329 

though earth and man respond in living robes of 
glory. 

And it is this great response and return, it is 
this larger and higher activity, this new and higher 
union with the Divine, this communal life with 
God, this realised childhood to the divine Father- 
hood, that alone rises to the plane and dignity 
of properly human life. In so far as a being merely 
vegetates, functioning only as the plants, it is 
not properly human. Or in so far as it merely 
functions as the animals function, it is not prop- 
erly human. Only when a being rises to those 
planes of action whose order and rank are essen- 
tially human, does it attain to real humanity. 
Mere receptivity and inferior activity never could 
constitute that high complex centre of life with 
its superior activity that we have in mind when 
we speak of a human being. It is only when a 
life takes itself and, ia this high way, actively 
relates itself to the All, only when it sets itself 
freely into all worlds, by thought and feeling and 
will and action, and by kinship of spirit, that it 
functions in the essentially human way. Just as 
it is only when a prince comes of age and enters 
upon his kingdom and verily takes up the real 
business of reigning, bringing himself and his 
realm into world commerce and world politics, 
that he is truly a king. 

And, once a life has made the great response 
and return and given itself, and freely set itself 



330 God and Man 

into the All, then also it unfolds its hidden poten- 
tialities into new and higher activities, as the 
tree evolves its latent leaves and blossoms. So 
it results that a life, by consecration and high 
activity, not only enters into new and higher 
union with the All, as an acorn by planting itself 
enters into new and higher connection with nature, 
but also that it puts forth new and finer powers 
of action, which in turn form new and subtler 
connections. Here is the kind of fimctioning 
that makes a being human. When a life thus 
takes itself and sets itself into nature and human- 
ity, into law and into truth, into beauty and into 
ideals and into the life of God, it comes to truly 
human activity and development. It is this great 
responsive activity, this great return, that lifts 
life to the human order. 

It is not what talents are given to us that 
makes us truly human, but what use we make 
of our gifts when we become aware of them. 
Our distinctively human side does not come to 
the fore until responses, until activities, as over 
against receptivities, begin. Our receptivities 
represent in the main what is done to us, our 
activities represent what we ourselves do. It is 
in our activities that we claim our birthright 
and enter upon kingship. 

But there is small action and there is great 
action; there is petty action and there is sublime 
action. Great and sublime action is that which 



Man's True Life in God 331 

has the universal quaHty about it. So long as 
a life acts as a private individual for itself, it is 
an individual. Only when it acts as a universal 
for the Whole does it become a universal. It 
becomes a universal when it takes its private 
individuality and devotes it in high service, just 
as the private soldier becomes a national patriot 
when he gives himself for his country. Truly 
human action is that which has the universal 
quality about it, that which is harmonic with 
the Universe, just as the true action of a plant 
or a star is that which is concordant with the 
All. For we must not forget that every life is 
both a particular and a universal, and that its 
deepest nature is found in the universal. But 
as long as it acts only as a particular, it remains 
a particular. When, however, it acts also as a 
universal, it becomes a universal, realising itself 
as such. The complete life realises itself both as 
a particular and as a universal; it becomes aware 
of itself first as a particular, and then by devoting 
its particular individual ego, it realises itself also 
as a universal. The particular is not destroyed, 
it is sublimated and fulfilled; it is taken up and 
held as a moment in the heart of the universal. 
A life therefore comes to truly human action 
only when it acts in the larger way, when through 
its individuality it realises itself as a universal. 

Acting and realising itself as a universal, of 
course the individual becomes harmonious with 



332 God and Man 

the Universe. That is its true life. Anything 
that ignores or sets at naught the cosmos, or any 
part thereof; anything that disregards the "not- 
self," or flouts any realm of Reality, is not liv- 
ing its true life. It is not its true self; for it 
itself is a part of the All. The Universe is re- 
flected in it, is represented in its being, is indeed 
the deep constitutive element of its nature. Hence 
it must set itself into the All, and must live in the 
richest relationship with all worlds that its nature 
makes possible. Otherwise it is out of harmony 
with itself and with its Universe. 

Moreover it must so live that God may pour 
His life freety not only into but also through it; 
just as a plant or animal must so live that nature 
may pour her life freely both into and through 
it. No animal, no plant, no living thing can 
become a mere pocket. It must be a channel 
and medium or it dies. Nature must have free 
course in every living thing. Only as heaven 
and earth pour themselves freely and fully into 
and through animals and plants do they come 
to perfect form and function, and so to their true 
life. Likewise only as God has free course in a 
human being, richly expressing Himself in and 
pouring His life through it, does it come to normal 
growth and action, and so to its true life. 

Properly human life therefore is found in ac- 
tivity rather than in passivity, in activity along 
the higher ranges, in acting as a universal rather 



Man's True Life in God 333 

than as a particular, in action that is in harmony 
with the total Environment, and in such activity 
as may be the free and rich expression of the 
Divine. 

And this it is to be human. We would indeed 
maintain without qualification that, only when a 
life lights its lamp and burns and shines does it 
become truly a lamp, properly a human life. 
We would maintain that only when a life acts 
in superior ways, functioning toward the higher 
ranges of Reality, being really alive in its higher 
nature and not merely in its lower root, does it 
become properly a human being. We would main- 
tain that, only when a life acts as a universal and 
not merely as a particular, only when it acts for 
the Whole, like Jesus, and not merely for the 
private self, like Napoleon, does it truly achieve 
humanit}^ We would maintain that, only when 
a life equilibrates itself with the All, acting in 
the widest harmony with the Universe of which 
its nature is capable, not negating any world 
nor functioning discordantly, does it live as a 
really human being. We would maintain, finally, 
that only when a lifQ becomes a free expression 
and servant of the cosmos and of Deity, only 
when it becomes a free channel and agency of 
the Divine, into and through which God freely 
may pour His life and work, does it attain unto 
essential humanity or arrive at what it means 
to be human. 



334 God and Man 

And in the midst of this the supreme crisis 
we would recall, that is, the conquest and tran- 
scendence of the egoistic, the individualistic self. 
Man is not man until he rounds the human curve 
and makes the great return. When he gathers 
up in himself all the gifts of God and reflects 
them back, as a lake in the starlight reflects 
back the heavens from its bosom, then he becomes 
truly an actor and citizen in the Universe, and 
so properly a man. 

This larger universal life is what we deliber- 
ately have called the personal life. The smaller 
particular we have called the individual life. 
And only as we live, in principle, as a universal 
human brother, in spirit as a universal parent, 
in mind and action as a true cosmopolitan, 
and in our whole life as a genuine child of God, 
do we really live the personal life and achieve 
human personality. 

If we could follow the path and course of life 
in its making and see the human bud spring 
from the human life-tree and develop toward 
separate selfhood, until it arrived at distinct and 
independent individuality, we should see that, 
like the detached acorn, it then only had arrived 
at the stage of true and independent life. The 
oak tree then merely was made possible. Not 
until the independent acorn gives itself back to 
nature, making new and higher connection with 



Man's True Life in God 335 

the earth and the Universe, does the true and 
possible oak tree become a reality. In like man- 
ner not until the free and independent individu- 
ality enters upon the role of action and gives 
itself back to the World-All, setting itself in 
manhood's way into humanity and into nature, 
into the universe of law and truth and beauty 
and ideals, and into the life of God, — not until 
then does the true human being become a reality. 
The scientist must set himself into the world of 
law, the artist must set himself into the world 
of beauty, the philosopher must set himself into 
the world of truth, the worker must set himself 
into the world of work, the friend and brother 
and lover and parent must set himself into the 
world of humanity, or there can be no scientist 
or artist or philosopher or worker or socius or 
parent. Even so the individual must set himself 
into all his worlds or no high complex centre of 
life can be developed; there can be no man. As 
we have said, man is not man until he rounds 
the human curve and makes the great return. 
And this great process is the development from 
human individuality into human personality. 

We now have seen that this new and higher un- 
ion with God and His worlds, this action as a uni- 
versal and not as a particular, is the properly human 
life. Naivete is not the properly human life. Indi- 
vidualism is not the properly human life. Man is not 
man until he is his larger self, until he is a person. 



336 God and Man 

It is a deep and natural witness to the truth 
of the above that no man can Hve at all without 
in some way living the larger life. Every one 
must live as a universal, although it be in a per- 
verted and limited way. Nobody can do any- 
thing without co-operating with the All. Does 
a man breathe, he breathes the world's atmos- 
phere. Does he see, he beholds the natural 
objects with nature's light. Does he eat, he 
feeds on the fruits of earth. We can not lift a 
foot from the ground without co-working with 
the universal energies and laws. We can not 
hate or love, think or become conscious, even 
of ourselves, without an objective world and an 
objective brain loaned by nature. If a man 
works, he must have a field. If he moves, he 
must have space. If he even exists, he must 
have place. In short, we can not live without 
co-working. The most selfish man that walks 
the earth draws his selfish breath, lays his selfish 
plans, and lives his selfish life, all with the being 
and strength that God and nature lend. Herein 
is the baseness of his life. In outer fact he must 
live, if he live at all, as a universal. In inner 
spirit, he may live also as a private ego and 
individualist. He must use his worlds, though 
he abuses them. It is a striking thing that even 
the egoist must call the Universe into his thought 
and act, in order to live even selfishly. Therefore 
even the selfish life shows forth the type of the 



Man's True Life in God 337 

true, as counterfeits show forth the image of the 
true coin. What every one does in a way, in 
order to live at all, though he does it perversely 
and limitedly, is what the true man should do 
grandly and aboundingly. The true and normal 
man should live perpetually as a universal, in 
higher union with God and His worlds, and 
therein should find his native home and glory; 
for that is man's true and appointed life. 

When we turn our thoughts from the sub- 
jective toward the objective side, we realise more 
and more that the Divine is the true Environ- 
ment and Home of man. Already the great 
concept of environment is familiar through 
science and through the xinfolding of our pres- 
ent thought. Already, too, the absolute neces- 
sity of a kindred environment is established. 
And we have arrived as well at the culminating 
idea of a divine Environment. 

Like every other environment the divine En- 
vironment is both transcendent and immanent. 
As nature indwells the opening flower, working 
in its secret springs and being, and at the same 
time is outside of and beyond, outgoing and tran- 
scending it, so the divine Environment works in 
a human life, in all its springs and streams, and 
at the same time is external to it, vastly out- 
going and transcending it. What were a sun 
that did not work in the inmost heart of trees 



338 God and Man 

and flowers, while at the same time, imconfined 
to their Httle being, he held high state in the 
transcendent sky. And what were a sky that 
was not the prime mover in all the most intimate 
happenings of earth, while at the same time 
remaining yon majestical and boundless sky. So 
what were a divine Environment, a Kingdom 
of Heaven, or a God, that did not move in all 
the hidden motions of man, in his inmost pur- 
poses and plans, while at the same time, uncon- 
fined to that little state, filling the farthest realms 
with their presence and rising like a sky supernal 
and transcendent over all. Men feel that God 
must be in the very cryptic springs and sources 
of human life and in its every stream, or He is 
not very God. Again men feel that God must 
not be confined to man's little kingdom, nor 
exhausted in one or in all His worlds, but must 
be greater than all the lower realms of Reality, 
outgoing and transcending them all like another 
and more supernal sky. For behold the heaven 
of heavens can not contain Him — how much less 
the little house of man's soul. Both the imma- 
nent and the transcendent God, both the imma- 
nent and the transcendent Kingdom of Heaven, 
or divine Environment, is what the whole need 
of man calls for. And this is what is provided; 
just as this is what every kind of environment 
severally provides for each kindred object that 
lives in it. An earth, a sky, a nature that were 



Man's True Life in God 339 

not in the root, stem, and fruit of the tree would 
be without function or sense. Likewise an earth, 
sky, nature that were there and nowhere else, 
and exhausted therein, would be wanting in the 
first character and condition of an environment; 
for an environment as such is both immanent and 
transcendent to the thing that it environs and 
vivifies . The divine Environment therefore being, 
like all other environments, both immanent and 
transcendent to the life of man, affords the fitting 
world, home, and nursery of his growing life. 

Being both transcendent and immanent, a 
divine Environment enables life to be both 
healthily objective and at the same time whole- 
somely subjective. If the Divine were merely 
immanent, religious life would be merely sub- 
jective. If the Divine were only transcendent, 
naturally religious life would be only objective. 
But if the great divine Environment, the true 
sphere of man's higher life, is in reality both 
immanent and transcendent, then, correspond- 
ingly, our religious life can be both subjective 
and objective. Of course the suppositions of 
mere immanence and mere transcendence have 
been made only for the purpose of our thought, 
not that they are inherently possible. Because 
the Divine that were merely immanent would 
become one and identical with the life that it 
indwelt, and would not be God over all, so not 
God at all. And the Divine that were merely 



340 God and Man 

transcendent would lack all connection with our 
human life and so would not be God for us in 
any sense. True Divinity and divine Environ- 
ment must be as certainly immanent as it is 
surely transcendent; then, as we have said, our 
religious life can be both wholesomely subjective 
and healthily objective. 

The world of beauty is without and within; 
but the external is far the greater. The universe 
of truth is both without and within; but again 
the external is vastly the greater. This leads to 
the true proportion between the objective and the 
subjective. No true lover of beauty and no 
true child of truth is either disproportionately 
objective or one-sidedly subjective. But a true 
subjectivity is held at the centre of a prevailing 
objectivity. Lil<:ewise the Divinity that is out- 
side of and beyond us is vastly greater than the 
divine revelation within; and so naturally life's 
regard is mainly objective, while the subjective 
is held as the inner circle in a larger prevailing 
objectivity. This is what we have called a healthy 
objectivity and a wholesome subjectivity. Few 
things are more important than the right mixture 
here. Undue objectivity or abnormal subjectiv- 
ity is as unwholesome as it is unsymmetrical and 
disorganising. And nothing can mix these two 
indispensable elements so naturally in the right 
and intended proportions as a great environment. 
Man set into nature, in tune with her processes 



Man's True Life in God 341 

and laws, will be in the main objective. But 
the subjective will not be suppressed; rather it 
will be fulfilled, by being held at the centre of 
the enfolding objective life. A human being set 
into the great environment of his humankind, 
living in true mutuality and reciprocity of life, 
will be naturally and mainly objective. The sub- 
jective will be held at the centre of a prevailing 
objectivity. Just as naturally a human life, set 
into a great divine Environment, in right rela- 
tion therewith, will be mainly objective. The 
subjective will not be denied, but, as before, will 
be held at the centre of a larger prevailing objec- 
tivity. The lungs that felt themselves more than 
the atmosphere they breathed; the eye that saw 
itself more than the light; the astronomer who 
regarded himself more than his heavens, would 
be anomalous and perverse enough. So the mind 
that thought more of itself than of truth, or the 
man who thought more of himself than of human- 
ity, or the life that regarded itself more than God 
and all His higher worlds besides, would be an 
unnatural and perverted product. It is end- 
lessly suggestive that nothing strikes its true 
balance until it touches its true element. The 
wild eagle on the wing can forget himself in his 
free and glorious flight. The caged bird must 
remember himself still in his restless discontent. 
In the same way a human being can lose himself 
in adoration and in the glory of great service. 



342 God and Man 

when he becomes a citizen of his true sphere, his 
higher divine Environment. There the objective 
does not superficiaHse itself, until it loses the 
depth and richness of subjectivity. And there 
the subjective does not pervert and internalise 
itself until it cuts itself off and loses the normality 
and largeness of the objective world and life. 
Rather, there a wholesome subjectivity is held 
as the inner circle of a larger, healthy objectiv- 
ity and the two are united in a true and rich 
life. 

A Kingdom of Heaven, or divine Environment, 
is the true sphere, home, and nursery of man's 
growing life. It is so because, as we have seen, 
it is both transcendent and immanent, and there- 
fore enables life to be both healthily objective 
and wholesomely subjective. And it is so because 
it furnishes the necessary element and condition 
of great and endlessly progressive growth. 

A kindred spiritual Environment is as neces- 
sary for our higher nature as a physical environ- 
ment for our lower. Human affection can spring 
and grow only in a sunny world of affection. 
Mind can unfold only in a world of mind. Spirit 
can flower only in a world of Spirit. An Environ- 
ment first to brood life, and then to furnish the 
field of life's campaign. A spiritual will without 
a spiritual World is as hopeless as a hand without 
a task or a wing without an atmosphere. 



Man's True Life in God 343 

All this in a way is as evident as light. Never- 
theless it is feebly realised with deliberate and 
intelligent consciousness. That the soul must have 
an atmosphere; that the ethical will must have 
a moral order; that the awakened mind must 
have a divine truth- world; that love must have 
the light and warmth of love is, in its higher way, 
a fact no less real and mighty than the fact that 
the foot must have an earth under it and the 
head a sky over it. The indispensable and abso- 
lute necessity of a realm of Reality, corresponding 
to a Kingdom of Heaven, as the pre-condition 
of all higher life and growth, should become a 
spiritual axiom to the human mind. A brother 
without a brotherhood; a child without a family 
or Fatherhood; a disciple without a Master; a 
spirit without an Inspirer; a member without a 
society of kindred souls or a Church; in fine, 
a human life without a great enfolding divine 
Life in which consciously, here and now, it might 
live and move and have its being, would be like 
a star without a sky. A kindred Environment 
as congenial to the soul as nature in springtime 
to the grasses and flowers — ^this is what must be. 

Such an Environment would be imperfect if 
in its culmination and final nature it were not 
verily Divine. It must be a Kingdom of Heaven 
in very truth. It must be as high as aspiration 
or thought ; at the same time it must come as close 
as life. It must be to it all that the parent is 



344 God and Man 

to the infant, but more. It must touch it with 
all the intimacy of motherhood, but must rise 
above it with all the higher degrees of maturity 
like something supernal. It must be to it what 
ideals are, but more. It must touch Hfe with 
the closeness of ideals, but must soar above it 
to ideal and astral heights. It must be indeed 
like the heavens, in us and all around us, and at 
the same time transcendently above us. If there 
were a possibility in a flower that was not appealed 
to by its great nature-environment, that environ- 
ment would be imperfect. Similarly, if there were 
a potentiality in the depths of a human life that 
was not appealed to by our higher Environment, 
that Environment would be inadequate. Is there 
the possibility of divine life at the centre and core 
of our being, then there must be divine life in 
our Environment, or it is imfit. Is there Divinity 
in our human thought and quest, then again there 
must be Divinity in our Environment. And if 
it is the very God that we think of and seek, then 
the very God, and not a semblance thereof, must 
be in our Environment, or it is not adequate — 
to say nothing about how that possibility ever 
could have got lodged in flower or life unless it 
had pre-existed in its environment; inasmuch as 
flowers and lives are to their environment what 
buds are to the mother-tree. But if our Environ- 
ment is really adequate to our total nature, 
thought, and life, in both its actuality and its 



Man's True Life in God 345 

possibility; if it is truly Divine, touching us with 
the intimacy of an atmosphere, and at the same 
time mounting above us with the transcendence 
of the heavens, then indeed we have the natural 
element and condition of all great and endless 
growth. Then the kindred and congenial King- 
dom of Heaven, then God Himself in reality, has 
become the soul's great Environment, and end- 
less progress is the natural evolution. Given a 
divine Environment to human life and you have 
given sunny Italy to the orange, or the Garden 
of Paradise to the rose. Then truly the Kingdom 
of Heaven is at hand, the fitting sphere, home, 
and nursery of man's ever-growing life. 

Such a divine Environment, and nothing less, 
is what God has provided in His Self-revelation 
as divine Background, incarnate Divinity, and 
divine Spirit. How shall we make this real? 
When we ponder how the cosmos itself furnishes 
the great nature-environment for the lower life 
of man; when we contemplate how the universe 
of Reality forms the background against which 
all life is set; when we see how the universal 
ground then, as it were, gathers itself up for us 
in a particular sun; and when we consider how 
the impalpable ether permeates all, according to 
the new view, as the subtle life and essence of 
ever3d:hing, we have a concept and a vision that 
are striking in their reality and their intellectual 
appeal. I know of nothing so naturally helpful. 



346 God and Man 

The lower environment suggests the higher, and 
furnishes the transition in thought. Nature leads 
to God as it should. A divine Background then 
that, like the Universe, forms the field against 
which life is set ; an incarnate Divinity that gathers 
the universal Divine up into the particular Ufe of 
Christ, and comes near in approach and efficiency, 
like the sun ; and a divine Spirit that, like an ether, 
permeates everything and constitutes the invis- 
ible soul and quickening life of all — ^this is the 
higher divine Environment that God has provided 
for man's higher life. 

Unless God, in some perfectly effective way, 
becomes the Environment of man's life, that Envi- 
ronment is inadequate. Because in the first place 
nothing but the Divine can create and mother 
man's being; and in the second place, nothing 
but the Divine can appeal to his deepest Hfe and 
furnish the proper object for his thought and 
worship. Not only man's higher Environment 
must be essentially divine, but also his lower 
environment, the cosmos itself, must be finally 
revealed to him in essentially divine aspects; 
otherwise his total Environment is imperfect 
and inadequate to his total nature and need. 
Accordingly God Himself has become man's 
element and home. He has become the sphere 
of his life, the enfolding Fatherhood in which 
he lives and moves and has his being. He has 
become the incarnate Christ, the great human 



Man's True Life in God 347 

and divine Personality, as definite and near as 
a mother to a child, more transcendent and inex- 
haustible than an ideal. He has become the 
Holy Spirit to man, indwelling and inspiring, 
greatening and glorifying, without end. This is 
man's perfect higher Environment, first creating, 
second meeting man's nature and need in its 
length and breadth and height and depth. As 
a concept, we even have ventured to say that it 
is absolute in its completeness, challenging our 
human mind to add a new dimension or take 
away an old. As a reality, it has proved the 
perfect coming of the Divine to the human, as 
sufficient and satisfying to man's higher being 
as nature to his lower. 

A divine Environment for the ever-growing 
life of man ; a Kingdom of Heaven for the child- 
ren of the King; God Himself become, in a 
perfectly sufficing way, the very sphere and 
element of the human heart, intellect, spirit, 
and will — ^here is the higher world of Reality 
that God has provided for the higher life, through 
His Self-revelation as Fatherhood-Divine-Back- 
ground, Incarnate Divinity, and Divine Spirit. 
Such is the incomparable Kingdom and Home 
that Christianity reveals and forever proclaims, 
an Environment worthy indeed to be called a 
Kingdom of Heaven-at-hand. And such the 
awakened and awakening souls of untold mul- 
titudes have found it as they have opened 



348 God and Man 

themselves wide to its power and been changed 
more and more into the image and glory of God. 

If now in addition this higher world of Reality, 
this revelation of Divinity as such, this Kingdom 
of Heaven, could change somehow the cosmos 
also into a kind of divine Environment, could 
transfigure it for man and reveal it in divine 
aspects, thus making the total Environment in 
some sense divine, the story of fulfilment would 
be complete. If in some way all nature could 
be thus viewed as well as humanity and law, 
truth, beauty, and ideals, then the entire En- 
vironment would become for man divine, and 
hence kindred and propitious. Most happily 
this is what comes to pass. The citizen of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, the life spiritualised in 
the divine Environment, the soul cleansed into 
purity so that it can see God, begins to see the 
Divine everywhere, — God in nature and in hu- 
manity, in law and in truth, in beauty and in 
ideals; God in all things and all things in God. 
To such a life, as to Jesus, the heavens become 
the throne of God and the earth itself the foot- 
stool of His feet; every city becomes a sacred 
City of the great King, and even the body of 
man His sacred handiwork, to whose stature man 
can not add one cubit, and of whose head he 
can not make one hair white or black. Thus 
to such an awakened and illumined soul the 



Man's True Life in God 349 

cosmos itself becomes a vast divine Environ- 
ment; all worlds become God's worlds; and God 
Himself becomes God over all, and in all, and 
through all. A higher Environment and a spirit- 
ualised life, turning all Reality into an infinite 
divine Environment, the fitting sphere, home, 
and nursery of man's ever-growing life — it is a 
consummation indeed fulfilling quite the total 
nature and need of man. 

Hitherto we have considered our higher union 
with God, and the Divine as the true Environ- 
ment of our life. Naturally in this Kingdom 
of Heaven thus at hand and this citizenship 
therein, God is forever working in man and man 
forever co- working with God in the supreme way. 
For God is working in man as Spirit, and man is 
co-working with God under inspiration. 

In the Holy Spirit God's working is consum- 
mate and complete. The primal but unending 
revelation through nature and humanity, law 
and truth, beauty and ideals, becomes indefinitely 
ampler in the light and life of the Spirit. The 
cosmos itself is born anew for man in his own 
new birth and awakening. Human life is seen 
transfigured in the light of God. Law becomes a 
vaster and diviner concept. Truth becomes more 
illimitable and august. Beauty becomes wider- 
ranging and more sacred. Ideals become fuller 
and more heavenly. 



35° God and Man 

When God works as Spirit, the greatest possible 
elevation of life takes place. All the ranges of 
our human nature are lifted up into the exaltation. 
Even the body becomes a temple. Thus our 
humanity is spiritualised and glorified, "changed 
from glory into glory." This is the supreme work- 
ing of God upon life. And thus God transfigures 
His Universe for us, as the earth is glorified by 
the dawn. This is God's supreme working upon 
His worlds, transfiguriag them all into a divine 
Environment for man. When God works as 
Spirit, the divine Background too becomes farther 
unveiled to the spiritualised sight. So it becomes 
richer. And the objective Christ is revealed in 
heavenly vision that does not pass. And the sub- 
jective Christ is revealed within, being formed in us 
more and more. So the Incarnation also is richer. 
While at the same time God pours forth His life 
as pure Spirit, unmixed with matter, unmingled 
with our humanity, not clothed with the vestments 
of creation, but coming as pure Spirit to spirit. 

Not that God could come as pure Spirit to 
spirit if there had been no cosmos and no Incar- 
nation. God, as we have seen, had to externalise 
Himself first in nature and in Christ, as first He 
had to externalise Himself in humanity, creating 
and evolving man spiritward through the early 
stages of naivete and individualism, before He 
could internalise Himself and come to our human 
life as pure Spirit to spirit. 



Man's True Life in God 351 

Here, therefore, is the complete and supreme 
working of God. Divine Spirit has enriched itself 
with the preceding moments and transcends them. 
God at length reveals Himself and works as God, 
coming as pure Spirit. God is Spirit. 

Correspondingly here is found as well the 
supreme form of human activity. When man 
co-works with God under inspiration he comes 
to his coronation. It is illuminating to reflect 
how this idea is embedded in human thought. 
If a poem comes like a divine inspiration, or a 
great symphony is heard in the soul as though 
the music of Heaven were echoed there, or a 
lovely picture is caught in transport of vision, 
or a great prophet preaches as one inspired, it 
is enough. Humanity is at the summit of its 
activity. There is no loftier exercise of our 
human powers, nothing higher that man can do. 
This is recognised everywhere, from the invention 
that comes like a flash from above, to the writing 
of a Bible for the race. But nowhere is this 
so supremely and naturally true as in religion. 
When man seeks not only to invent or write or 
compose or paint or speak as one inspired, but 
also to live as one inspired, his human powers 
have claimed indeed their noblest exaltation and 
exercise. It is the activity of our total nature 
Godward on the supreme spiritual plane. Nothing 
that we ever do is so inclusive and so elevated. 
Perfect prayer is the supreme exercise of the 



352 God and Man 

human mind. The effort to open ourselves as 
spirit to God as Spirit is the crowning effort of 
life. It is the fullest and most exalted con- 
sciousness that we ever know. Life's Upper 
Room is its highest room, and life's Pentecost 
is its supreme experience. To pray so as to re- 
ceive divine inspiration, to work under heavenly 
impulsion, and to live as one inspired, — in a word 
to co-work with God in the Kingdom of Heaven 
under the inspiration of the Spirit, is to live in 
the fulness and the glory of life. It is to live as 
Jesus lived. This is life's hilltop, where Heaven 
and earth come together, where God's working is 
consummated, where man's activity is supreme. 

God ever working in man as Spirit; man ever 
CO- working with God under inspiration: the su- 
preme form of both divine and human activity — 
here is the summit that we have reached. 

What now shall we say? Is this the destruc- 
tion of human individuality? Rather is it not 
its conservation and fulfilment? When is man 
so individual as when he is supremely active? 
And when is he so supremely active as when 
he is living an inspired life? Man's individual 
quality is no more negated when shone through 
by God's light, than is a stained-glass window. 
Rather his unique individuality is then brought 
out and glorified. When he endeavours to behold 
Christ in the richness and beauty of His character 



Man's True Life in God 353 

and struggles to appreciate Him; when he seeks 
so to live that God may reveal His Son in him 
and Christ may be formed within more and more 
perfectly; when he strives to open his life wide 
to God, as spirit to Holy Spirit, and to abide in 
God and God in him, — is he ever more completely 
himself? Is not his activity then as exalted and 
rich as it is excellent and arduous? Is he ever 
so free as on that hilltop? Does the earth ever 
lie so completely at his feet? And is he ever so 
master of himself and his world? The Son has 
made him free then and he is free indeed. His 
individuality is not destroyed, it is conserved 
and fulfilled. ' ' I came not to destroy but to fulfil. ' ' 
Individuality is fulfilled in personality. 

Herewith we have seen that the higher union 
with God is the true life of man ; that the Divine 
is man's true Environment and Home; and that 
God ever working in man as Spirit, and man ever 
co-working with God under inspiration, is man's 
supreme activity, and therefore the fulfilment, 
not the negation, of his human individuality. 
Thus we see: — Man's True Life in God. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HUMANITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 

IN all the foregoing we have been considering 
the relation of God to man and of man to 
God. We have not studied in any thoroughgoing 
fashion the relation of humanity to the individual, 
or of the individual to humanity. It is clear, 
however, that any philosophy of 3ife that does 
not include the latter and show its inner connection 
with the former is incomplete and unsatisfying. 
The enspherement of the individual by hu- 
manity; the prior and major working thereof; 
and the effort of the same to produce a full and 
complete man, has been either set forth or sug- 
gested in a manner that makes enlargement here 
unnecessary. Ensphering humanity, in a way, 
is a part of the ensphering life of God, that we 
dwelt upon so extensively at the beginning and 
that has formed the background of all our later 
chapters. Humanity is one of the many spheres 
that enfold our human life. The prior and major 
working thereof is a part of the priority, parent- 
hood, and greater working of God, that we also 
have dwelt upon. And the effort of the same to 
produce a full-grown human life is implied in the 

354 



Humanity and the Individual 355 

like purpose of God; for it is a part of that great 
purpose, and the procedure therein a part of His 
great process. How humanity therefore broods 
our life and is the prior and major worker in the 
effort to produce a full and complete human 
being, here must be left to our thought and 
imagination to revive and picture. 

In response to this ensphering, producing 
humanity, the individual for his part, if his 
growth be true, develops from receptivity into 
activity, from egoism into altruism, from child- 
hood into parenthood, and from discipleship into 
apostleship, or into the larger parenthood. 

That a human life must develop from receptivity 
into activity would seem so palpable indeed as to 
render the statement needless. But that a life 
must develop as well from egoism into altruism 
would seem at first far from palpable. Still the 
latter is equally true. For there can be no rich 
activity that is not extra-regarding and altru- 
istic ; and there can be no rich receptivity without 
rich activity. And of course without both these 
there can be no rich growth and self-realisation. 
All this has been abundantly shown in a preceding 
section. As there must be worlds from which to 
receive, so there must be worlds toward which 
to act. And the life that does not forget itself 
as it pours itself out toward nature or humanity 
or law or truth or beauty or ideals or God, is a 
life that does not deeply or richly act. Wide 



3 5^ God and Man 

open in rich receptivity on the one side, wide 
open in rich activity on the other side, toward 
all worlds — ^this is the law of all rich life and 
growth. 

If we contemplate more particularly the relation 
of humanity to the individual and of the indi- 
vidual to humanity, as in the present chapter 
we seek to do, we shall realise that nowhere is 
the general law more strikingly operant. For a 
life that does not evolve from a true childhood 
into a true parenthood, that is not in the first 
place endlessly fathered and mothered and so 
abundantly receptive, and that does not in the 
second place come in turn endlessly to parent 
other lives and so come to the most abounding 
and deepest activity of which life is capable, is 
itself an arrested development, a non-normal life. 
It need not here be said that any parenthood 
that is not unselfish and altruistic is not worthy 
of that high name; here we are regarding true 
and normal life. Let us also remind ourselves 
anew that the parenthood we contemplate is 
broader than the physical; it is as wide as the 
gamut of our human nature. Wherever body 
parents body, or affection parents affection, or 
mind mothers mind, or spirit broods spirit, there 
is the parenthood we mean. For the complete 
parenthood includes all of these. Although it is 
perfectly true that the higher parenthoods can 
exist and often do exist without the lower. 



Humanity and the Individual 357 

And this brings us naturally to that general 
development from discipleship into apostleship 
of which we have spoken, the larger parenthood 
which must characterise every true and complete 
life. The amplitudes of meaning that are here 
indicated must be left to the reader. Suffice it 
that a man or a woman who does not in disciple- 
ship forever reverently listen and learn, sitting 
at the feet of God and in communion with all 
His worlds, and who does not also forever become 
an apostle and parent to humanity in all the 
high things of the heart and mind and spirit, can 
never grow or become a true and representative 
life. That is, an individual who does not develop 
from an ensphered particular, or child, into an 
ensphering, producing universal, or parent, re- 
mains to the end an arrested, dwarfed, and lim- 
ited thing. 

Consider the goal reached: the life that will 
not live for others is doomed to blight and atro- 
phy, or worse. The law of self-realisation is the 
law of self-sacrifice and social service. Egoism is 
death; altruism is life. 

Here is what we have desiderated; here is the 
rational basis of self-sacrifice. H the life that 
will not give itself to others can neither profoundly 
act nor receive and so can not develop, but must 
remain in perpetual childhood, selfishness verily 
becomes death, while self-sacrifice becomes the 
law of life. This on the one side is the tragic. 



358 God and Man 

on the other side the glorious law. It is not 
merely that others need the help that we can 
give for the perfecting of their lives, but also 
that, unless we give that help richly, unless we 
pour forth our life abundantly, unless we act 
with our total nature toward their total nature, 
all life stagnates within us, all the intakes of life 
are clogged, and we do not go forth to that vaster 
development from individuality into personality. 
Here is the gravamen and criticalness of action. 
Unless we open out toward humanity, unless we 
bloom, we can never develop the seeds and soul 
of character within, or bring out and realise the 
possible beauty of our being, or send forth a 
sweet fragrance to the world. A heart that does 
not pity, that does not sympathise and love; a 
mind that does not consider, that does not pene- 
trate and search out and plan for and teach other 
minds ; a soul that does not yearn after and brood 
and quicken other souls, is a heart, a mind, a spirit 
that is without a great and fitting occupation. 
Such a life can never grow. It is like a landscape 
in winter, or like an orange tree that has met a 
killing frost and all the saps of life are frozen in 
its arteries and buds. The life that will not 
become humane can not continue to be human. 
He that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that 
loseth his life shall find it. 

Parenthood indeed is essential and blessed, 
not only to childhood but also to manhood and 



Humanity and the Individual 359 

womanhood. Universal parenthood is absolutely 
indispensable to self-realisation. Self-sacrifice in 
truth is implicated in the very constitution and 
law and process of our being and becoming; and 
that vaster development from individuality into 
personality, that alone makes life truly human, 
is perpetually inhibited to the selfish soul. The 
selfish life must forever remain a torso. Here, 
then, is the rational basis of self-sacrifice. We 
die to live. The universal parent and apostle 
to humanity becomes the true and complete hu- 
man being. 

It is in no wise strange that this should be. 
It is according to a deep universal law. No 
environment does, the Universe itself does not, 
pour its living energies into us as though we were 
a mere reservoir and receptacle. Not into but 
into and through is the formula. Life is not a 
pocket or sink, it is a medium, channel, agency. 
All the realms of Reality pour themselves into 
and through us as the oceans pour themselves 
into and through the rivers of the world. Life 
is not like the Dead Sea that swallows up the 
sweet Jordan, but like Galilee with its perpetual 
inflow and outflow. One of the most instructive 
and sobering things for human contemplation is 
the way all realms give and take back again their 
own. Do they lend us strength to-day, they claim 
it back to-morrow. The energy we take in as food 



360 God and Man 

we give out as work. Even our solid bones melt, 
thaw, and flow away while new bones flow into 
their place. And at the last this congeries of 
elements, this body, we return to the earth as it 
was. Nothing stays. Thought comes and goes. 
Feelings pass like waves. Consciousness itself is 
a stream. It is not ours to have and to hold. 
We can not reverse this unalterable law. Shylock 
may bathe his hands in yellow ducats up to his 
elbows, but soon his bony fingers must let the 
last piece fall. We give back all that we get. 
It is ours to use or abuse, not to keep. We may 
put the universal energies to splendid use as they 
flow through us, or we may desecrate them by 
abuse. We may even greatly enlarge life's inlets, 
especially the higher, but we can not stop the 
river in its flow. Nature flows into and through 
us; humanity flows into and through us; the life 
of God flows into and through us. Thus not into, 
but into and through, is the universal law. 

A human life then is a medium and agency. 
It is a true medium and agency when it lets all 
worlds flow through it freely. It lets all worlds 
flow through it freely when it itself develops 
richly from receptivity into activity, from egoism 
into altruism, from childhood into parenthood, 
and from discipleship into apostleship, or univer- 
sal parenthood; or in general when it develops 
from a particular into a universal, or from indi- 
viduality into personality. But this, on the other 



Humanity and the Individual 361 

side, is self-sacrifice; it is dying. Yes; but it is 
dying to live. Here, consequentl3% is the rational 
basis of the universal law of self-sacrifice. Not 
into, but into and through, is the universal law, 
the law both of self-sacrifice and of life. To 
be a rich medium and agency is to become a 
rich life. 

Apply this now to the relation of the individual 
life to humanity. It is a medium and agency 
as before. It is so truly when it lets humanity 
flow through it freely. It does this richly when 
it itself becomes perfectly unselfish; that is, when 
it develops from receptivity into activity, from 
egoism into altruism, from childhood into parent- 
hood, and from discipleship into apostleship, or 
universal parenthood. But once more this is 
self-sacrifice; it is dying. True; but it is dying 
to live. Consequently here again we have the 
rational basis of self-sacrifice. The individual 
life becomes a rich medium and agency of hu- 
manity and thereby realises itself and becomes 
a rich life. 

It is a labour to appreciate the magnitude of 
the fact we now are looking out upon. We see 
life as it is, set into the All, the perpetual centre 
and focus of countless streams of energy that 
flow into it from every realm of Reality. We 
also see it as the perpetual fountain-head of count- 
less streams of influence that flow from it in every 



o 



62 God and Man 



direction toward all worlds. If life itself were 
thought of as a great heart, and the venous sys- 
tem as numberless channels forever bringing the 
streams into it, and the arterial system as innu- 
merable conduits constantly leading the streams 
away, then its ceaseless diastole and systole would 
represent its perpetual intake and output. And 
the representation would be essentially true to 
reality. For life is no more severed from the 
great systems of the Universe than the heart 
from the venous and arterial systems of the body. 
And as one sees a heart truly only when one sees 
it in its vital setting, a beating centre, connecting 
complex systems on the one side and on the 
other, ceaselessly intaking and as ceaselessly out- 
pouring, so one sees a human being truly only 
when one sees him set into the organic Universe, 
a throbbing centre of high complex life, con- 
necting vast systems on the one side and on the 
other, perpetually receiving from all worlds and 
perpetually outgiving toward all. This is life, 
veritable life. Anything else is like a human 
heart in a jar of alcohol, or a manikin in a glass 
case. And any view of life that does not see it 
thus as the living centre and focus of all worlds 
is utterly superficial and false. Therefore we 
must see heaven and earth and all the realms 
between, universal law, truth, beauty, and ideals, 
humanity and God forever pouring their energy 
and life into and through man; and man for his 



Humanity and the Individual 363 

part, not as an impossible reservoir without out- 
let, but as a wonderful channel, medium, and 
agency of it all. 

What a different view of life this is from the 
individualistic! And how different the impli- 
cates that go with it! If the individual life is, 
like a circle, complete in itself, of course there 
is no rational basis of self-sacrifice. But if life 
is not a circle, as self-complete and detached as 
though it existed in an infinite void, but on the 
contrary is a living channel, medium, and agency, 
into and through which all worlds stream and 
act, then at once a rational basis of self-sacrifice 
is in sight. The individual then must be a fit 
medium and agency through which all realms 
may have free course. But no selfish life can 
be such. For selfishness in its essential nature 
refuses to give itself. It is like a gigantic spider 
sitting at the focus of its web. It would draw 
all things into itself; it would give nothing out. 
Only the unselfish life can have true commerce, 
with natural inflow and outflow. But this is 
self-sacrifice. How inevitably then we reach the 
result that only the sacrificial life can be a true 
medium and agency, receiving richly from every 
world and pouring out richly toward all. And 
how rational becomes the law of self-sacrifice. 
It is in reality fit adjustment to the Universe. 
It is recognition of the great fact-worlds. It is 
acknowledgment of connection. It is acceptance 



364 God and Man 

of the law of finite life, namely, that all the realms 
of Reality pour their energies, not merely into, 
but into and through every living thing. And 
it is acceptance at the same time of its own deeper 
being; for it itself is, not only a private individual, 
but also a public universal; it is a part of the 
Universe. So sacrifice is only of the individual- 
istic self, and self-sacrifice becomes self-realisation. 
For when a life lets all worlds flow through it 
freely, richly and unselfishly co-operating there- 
with, it realises its true self, as the diamond 
realises itself when it lets ten thousand sunbeams 
pour through its being. To be perfectly trans- 
parent; to let the sunbeams come into it; to 
shatter them into their elemental glory; and 
to flash them out again — ^this is the splendour 
of the diamond, this is the making of the jewel. 
Any opacity on its part, any selfish absorption 
of the rays, any refusal to be a transparent me- 
dium, sullies its own beauty. Most normal and 
rational accordingly is self-sacrifice, or spiritual 
purity and transparency of soul. Because life 
is a medium and agency, therefore self-sacrifice 
is the only true attitude. 

It is noteworthy that our true relation to 
humanity is not different from our right relation 
toward all other worlds. Our attitude toward 
nature, toward law, truth, beauty, and ideals, 
as well as toward God, is not essentially different. 
Face-to-face with these, reverent receptivity and 



Humanity and the Individual 365 

unselfish activity are the only appropriate atti- 
tude. Here, as ia the human sphere, selfishness 
is self -defeat, while humility is iaheritance. 
They can pour themselves abundantly only 
through an open and generous soul. So the 
law of self-sacrifice is a universal law, applying 
to the individual, not only in his relation to 
humanity, but also in his relation to every realm 
of Reality, and for the same reason; for life is 
set into the All, everywhere as a medium and 
agency. 

Have we put unmeasured emphasis upon this 
last? We have done so deliberately; for to be 
a true medium and agency is about the chief 
end of man. To be such in relation to human- 
kind, to be such in relation to the cosmos, and 
to be such in relation to God is to find one's true 
place and fulfil one's function in the World-All. 

What is it then to be a true medium and agency 
of humanity? It is first to be a true child of 
humanity; it is second to be a true parent of 
humanity. When we are children humanity 
enspheres our life; it is an ensphering, producing 
universal. When we become parents, we en- 
sphere other lives ; we in turn become ensphering, 
producing universals. Our development thus is 
from an ensphered particular into an ensphering, 
producing universal. Not, of course, that hu- 
manity ever ceases to be to each of us, in subtle 
ways, what it was at the first. It is plain, too, 



366 God and Man 

that parenthood, as here used, is more than 
physical, having all the scope of affectional, 
intellectual, and spiritual parenthood. To be 
such a universal parent means to become a co- 
creator with humanity on every plane of life. 
Medium and agency, universal parent or enspher- 
ing universal, and co-creator, — ^this is what every 
developed life in relation to humanity becomes. 

Is such language unfamiliar? It, or some such 
terms, with the great ideas for which they stand, 
speedily must become familiar. No longer may 
we view a human life as a self-complete and de- 
tached thing. There is no such monstrosity in 
the world. Rather we must see life as it is, see 
it in its connections, see it set into humanity as 
its medium and agency, and every normal and 
growing life as a universal parent and co-creator 
of its human-kind. 

What now shall we say to this? how estimate 
it? Certainly no one could ask a greater ofQce. 
No human relationship could be deeper, richer, 
and more intimate. At once the loftiest char- 
acters of history rise in our thought. We witness 
the spiritual fathers and Madonnas of the race. 
To be a true medium and agency, a gracious 
parent, a co-creator of our kind is to attain, to 
be numbered among the great and good. 

So here is the true and intended relationship 
of man to humanity, in which egoism passes into 
concrete altruism, selfishness changes into par- 



Humanity and the Individual 367 

ental love, and self-sacrifice is seen to be the 
only normal and rational thing in the world and 
to be crowned at last with self-realisation. 

Again it is noteworthy that the same concept 
that indicates the right relation of the individual 
to society, indicates essentially the true relation 
of a life to the cosmos and to God. To be a 
perfect medium and agency of the cosmos, to 
develop from an ensphered particular into an 
ensphering, producing universal, and to become 
a co-creator therein is to find one's place and 
function. The like is true of man's supreme rela- 
tionship. For to be a fitting medium and agency 
of the Divine, to develop into universal parent- 
hood under God, and to become a co-creator with 
Him is indeed to find one's true place and life. 
One law therefore holds throughout. The same 
note of harmony is struck in the great circle of 
Divinity that is struck in the smaller circles. 
Our supreme relationship furnishes the key to 
our subordinate relationships, and vice versa. 
The life that has found its place in God has found 
its true place also in the cosmos and in humanity, 
for the ways are one. 

At this stage we have sought to lift up into 
centrality a great normative fact that in former 
chapters we only casually have touched. This 
great fact is that life is a focus and centre between 
vast systems, that it is a part of the All, set into 
Reality as a medium and agency of every world. 



368 God and Man 

and as a co-creator therein. Heretofore we have 
studied on the one side all worlds in relation to 
man, on the other side man in relation to the 
World- All, We have seen the universal lines 
converge and focus in him; we have seen all the 
lines of influence radiate from him. We have 
studied him, that is, on the one side and on the 
other, but we have not thoughtfully viewed him 
as the centre and focus of both these great pro- 
cesses at once: we have not finally set him as an 
actual life into his actual worlds. This is what 
our present chapter has sought to do. Herein 
is its essential advance. Man's true relation to 
humanity, as well as his true relation to every 
world, flows naturally therefrom. 

We must see life then set into the World-All 
as we see a star set into the cosmos. All realms 
of Reality stream toward that star; all lines of 
influence radiate from it. Better, all worlds pour 
their influences into and through it. It is their 
perfect channel and medium. So with life; it is 
the medium and agency of all the spheres. 

Does this seem imaginative ? It is the veritable 
transcript of fact. We imagine a vain thing, 
rather, when we abstract, and treat the individual 
as an independent entity, as though he were some 
self-complete circle. The truth is, we are so near 
ourselves that we can not see ourselves, just as 
we are so near the earth that we can not see it. 
If we saw the earth afar off, hanging like the 



Humanity and the Individual 369 

moon in the sky, then we should see that all the 
while it is set into the universal system and is 
the channel and medium of every realm. So 
with us 5 all the while we are set into the universal 
Whole, the medium and agency of every sphere, 
however provincial and short-sighted our ordinary 
view may be. 

With this true setting of life, the true law of 
life and the right relation thereof to humanity, 
nature, and all higher worlds, together with the 
deep, rational basis of self-sacrifice toward every 
realm, are naturally and logically given. 

Thus man is a medium and agency. His great 
business is to be a true medium and agency. 
He can be such only by being perfectly open 
and unselfish. Thereby he becomes, under God, 
a co-creator ; toward humanity, a universal parent ; 
and in himself, a true and complete man. 



CHAPTER XIV 

MAN THE EXPRESSION OF GOD AND PARTAKER OF 
THE DIVINE NATURE 

STAGE by stage, from the beginning, we have 
studied life in relation to its great Environ- 
ment. First we have looked at the divine side, 
then at the human, back and forth, up to the 
present. Now it will be good to connect the 
different stages in parallel series and see each 
in its connection. 

Man finds himself, at the beginning, set into 
the World-All and endowed with a marvellous 
gamut of possibilities. He starts in harmony 
and union with his environment, the lower union 
of childhood's instinctive plane. He grows and 
separates into the polarity of an individual will. 
He advances then into the higher union with 
God and His worlds, developing from individu- 
ality into personality. Thereby he rises into rich 
co-operation with and co-creatorship under God. 
Thus at length he becomes a true medium and 
agency of the Divine, more and more an expres- 
sion of God, and at last a partaker of the divine 
nature. So he develops into a child of God and 

370 



Man the Expression of God 371 

into a full-grown man. Here is the normal course 
of our human progress as we advance from child- 
hood to ripe manhood. This is the view from 
the human side. 

On the divine side, God creates us and enfolds 
us with His universal spheres. He is and remains 
the prior and major worker in all our human life. 
He works to unfold us into full and complete 
personality. He does this by a vast threefold 
Self -revelation through all media, till Spirit to 
spirit speaks. In this rich and trinal way He 
ever works in us, progressively creating. Thus 
He develops and raises us into higher union and 
co-operation with Himself and into co-creator- 
ship. Thereby we are made a true medium and 
agency of His life, a rich expression of God, and 
a partaker of the divine Nature. So He develops 
us at last into a child of God and a complete man. 
This is the view from the divine side. 

So much for each series in its connection. The 
terms that we have not yet considered are: Life 
as an expression of God, and finally a partaker 
of the divine Nature. 

If it is a different and higher view of life to 
see it as we have done, as the channel and agency 
of God and His worlds, and if this is the deep and 
decisive corrective of all insulating individualism, it 
is also a loftier and truer view to contemplate it as 
the expression of the Divine; and the correctives 
of this view are no less positive and wholesome. 



372 God and Man 

Human life the expression of God. But does 
not God express Himself in and through all His 
worlds? and is not our realisation of this simply 
the apprehending of the true function and God- 
hood of Deity? In what distinctive way then 
does He express Himself through man ? He utters 
Himself in rich and superlative degree. 

It is very wonderful to think of our human 
life as the expression of the Divine, to think of 
the very God as dwelling in us, and to realise 
that He utters Himself through us in far higher 
and richer ways than through mineral crystal, 
or vegetal life, or animal form. It is a supreme 
and transporting view. For into us He sheds 
His love, into us He pours His thought, unto us 
He imparts His Spirit, and through us executes 
His higher will. It is wondrous to think of God's 
uttering Himself through us at all ; it is surpassing 
to think of His expressing Himself in this tran- 
scendent way. A marvellous organ of God is the 
consciousness of man. When it is lifted up to 
its highest forms it is a sublime expression. 
Nothing in truth so glorifies our human nature 
to our thought as the fact that God is pouring 
His creative power and life through it. If that 
unfathomable, full, and perfect Being is pouring 
His high life through all the gateways of our 
nature and especially through its nobler gates, 
then is our nature glorious indeed, and then is 
our higher Hfe unsearchable. No man thinks of 



Man the Expression of God 373 

himself worthily or of his privilege nobly who 
does not think of his life thus as the possible 
image and rich expression of God. And when 
he realises that God is speaking through him in 
a thousand ways, that He is streaming through 
all the channels of his being, and working in him 
both to will and to work according to His good 
pleasure, he realises that it is half divine to live. 
So elevated and rich is the higher life. The im- 
manent God is the glory of man as thesimlight 
is the glory of the jewel. 

Nor have men been blind to this. In all times 
wherever a man has realised that God verily was 
speaking to him and that he was the voice of 
God to men, he has been raised into uncommon 
exaltation. And wherever humanity have been 
convinced that some chosen man was the mes- 
senger of the Most High to them, they have looked 
upon him with wonder and awe. To feel that 
one is a herald of the Divine, to know that one 
has a message from above, and to be sure that 
God is speaking in the soul and impelling it to 
become a voice is, men know, an incomparable 
consciousness. It is that that has made the 
great prophets of the race; it is that that has 
written the supreme pages of history. It reaches 
up to the highest altitudes of our human expe- 
rience. It is of a piece with the consciousness 
of Jesus, who was aware that His Heavenly 
Father forever was speaking through Him. We 



374 God and Man 

need very great elevation in order to see and 
appreciate this. There is no higher view of life 
than that which sees it as some great jewel through 
which the light of God may gloriously stream. 

The other side of this radiant and supreme 
privilege is that man may show forth God to 
the world, the human may be the mirror of the 
Divine. On the one side we may hold, as we 
have seen, our purified being up to God and 
know that that transcendent Light and Life are 
forever pouring into us. On the other side we 
may hold our reflecting nature up to the world 
and humbly know that, even in marvellous degree, 
we may show forth God to men. But again we 
ask: Does not every crystal, does not every flower, 
every bird, every star show forth God? And 
again we answer: They do; but man, in his 
higher life, may show forth God in superlative 
ways. 

Two men were coming from Trinity Church 
where they had listened to Phillips Brooks, when 
one was heard to say to the other: "There is 
something divine about that man." He had 
shown forth God to them. At once we feel that 
that is the limit. Higher function than that 
there is not nor can be on earth or in heaven. 
To manifest His character in the world, to utter 
His word in His spirit, to show forth the will 
and work of God, so to exhibit His life and grace 
that men seeing us may think of Him and feel 



Man, Partaker of the Divine Nature 375 

that we are revealing the heart of God, is an 
office and privilege little less than divine. How 
far it is from all sordid self -display, how excel- 
lent, how perfect. The life of man the mirror 
of God — 'tis an office fit for an angel. To be 
such a mirror truly, to reflect more and more 
perfectly the glory of God would make "brutes 
men and men divine." 

Most naturally this leads us to our next view: 
man a partaker of the divine Nature. From life 
as an expression of God, to life as a partaker 
of the divine Nature, thought rightly and easily 
passes. For how we could reflect as in a mirror 
the glory of the Lord and not be changed into 
the same image from glory unto glory would 
more than puzzle the mind. And with this our 
human life attaias. For the supreme function 
of man is to show forth God in the world, and 
the supreme goal of life is to become a partaker 
of the divine Nature. This is more than evident 
in the nature of things. Because God is the 
limiting term upward, and the most overweening 
ambition of man has known not how to attempt 
anything higher than self -deification. To share 
in God's world, work, thought, will, love, life, 
and nature! how could one write another ascend- 
ing series comparable to that? It is the soul's 
stairway to Heaven. And other sancta scala of 
Reality there is not and can be none. Unto this 



37^ God and Man 

God, through all media, through all His vast 
and augmenting Self-manifestation, seeks to bring 
us. And unto this the Son of God is the Saviour 
and perfect Way. " And God created man in His 
own image, in the image of God created He him; 
male and female created He them." " He hath 
granted unto us His precious and exceeding great 
promises; that through these ye may become 
partakers of the divine nature." "Behold what 
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we should be called children of God: and 
such we are." 

What we have been leading up to we now have 
reached: life as a fulfilled child of God and a 
complete man. When is this realised? Already 
we have seen in part; now we may see in full. 

Here we need to recall the great gamut of 
Reality. We need to see the World-All rising 
from the lowest physical up to the highest spirit- 
ual, from nature up to life, law, truth, beauty, 
ideals, and God. And over against that great 
gamut, we need to see man unfolding Godward, 
developing from body with its physical life, up 
to mind with its subconscious instinct, and its 
lower subliminal ranges of feeling, intellect, will, 
intuition, and faith; on up to conscious mind with 
its higher ranges of life, affectional, intellectual, 
and volitional, esthetic, moral, and spiritual. 
When man thus stands over against the World- 
All, the minor gamut over against the major. 



Man, Partaker of the Divine Nature 377 

corresponding to it range for range, then in one 
great aspect thereof, human Hfe has been fulfi-hed. 
It must unfold through the whole gamut, from 
the physical up to the spiritual, or it is not com- 
plete. The scale of Reality must reproduce itself 
in miniature in man. He must match himself 
over against the World-All, he must be a micro- 
cosm in the Macrocosm, or he is not a full-grown 
man. Otherwise he would be like a bare and 
leafless tree, with no rich correspondence and 
connection with the atmosphere of earth or the 
sunlight of heaven; and little enough like a per- 
fect tree, green with leaves and glorious with 
blossoms, in luxuriantly rich correspondence and 
union with earth and sky. 

Not only must the whole gamut of life be there, 
matching the World-All, but also life must be 
spiritualised. When a life becomes spiritual, it 
is not merely that it develops a new and topmost 
plane, adding thereby the final range to life, but 
as well that that supreme spiritual plane pervades 
with its fine influence all the lower ranges and 
imbues even the body. The whole life thus is 
spiritualised. The higher organises and informs 
the lower. Just as a truly intellectual life not 
only possesses that high range, but also per- 
meates with its subtle power all the lower ranges ; 
or just as a really loving life imbues the whole 
nature with the grace of love. Here is another 
great aspect of the fulfilled life. 



Z7^ God and Man 

We now may venture a complete answer to 
our question as to when a life realises itself. 
When man has unfolded all the possible ranges 
of his nature, and the World- All has reproduced 
itself in miniature in him; when he has become 
spiritualised throughout, and the World- All has 
become divinised for him; when the human has 
become a rich medium and agency of the Divine, 
a superior expression of God, and a partaker of 
the divine Nature, and God has developed His 
own image in him, has reproduced Himself in 
him in rich degree, then is man a fulfilled child 
of God, and so a complete man. 

Three great essentials are here present on the 
human side. First, human life has developed 
from its budding infancy and lifted itself up 
through all the ranges of growth until it stands 
in the full stature of manhood, crowned with 
spirituality. Second, the crowning spiritual na- 
ture has wrought down through all the lower 
ranges like a divine leaven, spiritualising all and 
giving the total life elevation. Third, the devel- 
oped personality thus has become a noble medium 
and agency of the Divine, a rich expression of 
God, and a partaker of the divine Nature. 

And three great essentials are present on the 
divine side. The World-All has reproduced itself 
in man; the Divine has revealed itself to him as 
Spirit and so the Universe has become spiritual- 
ised; and God has reproduced His image in him. 



Man, Partaker of the Divine Nature 379 

Here it is especially noteworthy as a thing 
of first importance, that the World-All repro- 
duces itself in miniature in man. Because this 
makes the human product as profoundly and 
essentially natural on a higher plane as the pro- 
duction of a rose on the lower. For what could 
be more fundamentally natural than that a parent 
should reproduce itself essentially in a child? If 
there is a physical kingdom why should we not 
be physical ? If there is a vegetal-animal realm 
of life, why should it not reappear in us ? If there 
are realms of law, truth, beauty, and ideals, why 
should they not be represented in our wide- 
ranging nature? And if there are higher and 
vaster realms of mental and spiritual Reality, 
why should they not reproduce themselves in the 
mind and spirit of man? Nothing in the world 
would appear more essentially normal and natural 
than this. The only fundamentally unnatural 
and abnormal thing in all our life is sin and 
arrested development. The acorn that never 
becomes an oak, the blasted life that never un- 
folds its hidden potencies, is the one certain 
abnormality. 

Like unto the first in importance is the second : 
the World- All has become divinised or spiritual- 
ised for man. Under the inspiration of God the 
developed spirit of man comes to behold the 
Divine everywhere. He sees God in nature and 
God in life, God in law and God in truth, God 



380 God and Man 

in beauty and in ideals, and pre-eminently in 
His unique and only-begotten Son. In differing 
degrees the light of God shines through all His 
worlds into the truly awakened human soul. 

The culminating fact of course is the third: 
God has reproduced His own image in man. The 
developed life indeed has come to be affection 
of the infinite Affection, intellect of the divine 
Intellect, and will of the eternal Will — in a word, 
spirit of the absolute Spirit, a partaker of the 
divine Nature. 

This is what it means to be a fulfilled child 
of God; this it is to be human, to be a full-grown 
man. 

Particular attention now may be called to the 
essential harmony of this outcome with the funda- 
mental position of our book. Supreme emphasis 
has been put upon the vast and total Environ- 
ment. The priority and parenthood of God have 
been made pre-eminent. And with this our pres- 
ent result accords. For the World- All has repro- 
duced itself in miniature in man; so man has 
unfolded through his wide-ranging gamut: God 
has revealed Himself as Spirit, spiritualising the 
Universe for man; so man has realised himself 
as spirit, attaining to spirituality: and God has 
developed His own image in man; and so he has 
become an expression and partaker of the divine 
Nature. 



Man, Partaker of the Divine Nature 381 

Again looking over the entire development we 
see that, through all this vast, incommensurable 
process, the Universe and man alike have become 
spiritualised ; progressively God has revealed Him- 
self as Spirit, and man has realised himself as 
spirit. So that at length Spirit to spirit speaks, 
and spirit with Spirit dwells. And this more- 
over forever to go forward, that Spirit, God, may 
become AU-in-AU. 

Here is the divine goal toward which all crea- 
tion moves. Man's significance is not thereby 
negated but fulfilled. He becomes a spiritual 
personality within the all-enfolding life of God. 
Man glorifies God, and God glorifies Himself in 
m.an, as the child glorifies the father and the 
father glorifies himself in the perfect child. Not 
"eternal form," but eternal personality, "shall 
still divide the eternal soul from all beside." 

When this shall be, when God shall be All-in- 
AU, we shall have entered into the soul of things : 
the bodies shall have passed: the spirit and the 
eternal reality shall abide. Physical being, child- 
hood, youth, on the subjective side; nature, divine 
background revelation, and incarnate Divinity, 
on the objective side shall have passed away, it 
is true, in their temporal actuality, but shall 
abide in their eternal and essential reality. Life 
shall forever be different because it tabernacled 
in this intimate and dear frame. Childhood shall 



382 God and Man 

forever live at the heart of manhood. And ma- 
turity shall be "yoiing with the eternal youth." 
The essential soul of all temporal forms shall have 
passed into the eternal Spirit, and so abide. Even 
past forms therefore shall not have proved in the 
end merely empty and meaningless, but shall have 
revealed within a deeper significance that endures. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE ABOUNDING RICHES OF THE HIGHER LIFE 

OUR task in the main is done. The body 
and articulation of truth have been at 
length set forth. It is now our privilege to 
estimate the splendid outcome. If our evalua- 
tion shall justify the magnificent claims of the 
higher life, the result will be happy indeed. We 
turn then from realm to realm, to value and 
judge that life in relation to the different fields 
of Reality. 

And first the higher life with Nature. Nature 
is different to Jesus than to Judas. The ennobled 
life, as we should expect, looks out upon a changed 
cosmos. All nature to such a soul becomes a vast 
revelation of God. Her immensities tell of His 
infinitude as nothing else could; her irresistible 
might impressively reveals His omnipotence; her 
endless variety and system, His fathomless wis- 
dom; her majesty, His divine glory. Ever3rthing 
is pstinct with His presence. The face of nature 
is indeed a wondrous mirror, her framework an 
endless symbolism, her fields the leaves of the 
eldest Bible of the race, her myriad voices His 

383 



384 God and Man 

various speech, and all her processes a vast, 
divine processional, the ongoings of God. To 
the pure and clarified being of a Wordsworth, 
nature is not dead and mechanical, but quick 
with life and purpose; her inmost essence is not 
crass and material, but fine and spiritual; her 
opacity becomes at least translucent ; her mystery 
is changed from the dark and depressing mystery 
of Fate into the fascinating mystery of light; 
and her meaning is incommensurably enriched. 
To such a life ever5rthing is changed. The might 
and immensity of nature are no longer crushing, 
but rather uplifting and enlarging. Instead of 
his producer, she becomes his mother, his com- 
pendious teacher, his life-long friend. Her wide 
house now becomes his kindred and congenial 
home; her high vault, his spiritual temple; and 
her endless variety and change, his living and 
never-failing inspiration. In a word, nature is 
spiritualised and glorified to the noble soul. The 
higher life with nature is like a continual morning 
of privilege. So rich and real and inexhaustible 
it is daily to unnumbered thousands. 

Let us think of the higher life next in relation 
to Law. Few are the ideas that have had a 
larger part in shaping the nobler life of the race. 
This regnant concept is peculiarly the treasure 
of advanced civilisation. It is priceless and in- 
dispensable. And as humankind has climbed to 
higher planes, it has caught sight of finer and 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 385 

finer ranges of law. And from those elevations, 
too, all the lower forms of law have been seen 
in a different light. They have been seen as 
lowly ministrant to some excellent end. Many 
are the aspects in which law is beheld. The 
higher life feels the reign of law as the actuality 
of the boundless World- All outside of us, assert- 
ing its august rights and layiag its majestic claim 
upon life. It goes farther. It apprehends law 
as the reality of God, ensphering us, the almighty 
Hand, holding us everywhere. Deeper still, it 
apprehends law as the Will of God. And it 
presses yet farther back, and realises it as a 
revelation of the character and life of God. From 
law as a meaniagless sequence of events, on to 
law as the presence and self-revelation of God, 
is a wide and happy flight. The higher life sees 
law also as the principle of order and as the soul 
of harmony. It perceives it as an essential mo- 
ment of all rational life. It detects it as the 
counterpart of our rational self in the cosmos. 
It recognises it as the other half of freedom, 
and as the strong ally and partner of the higher 
union which constitutes the higher life. And 
finally it experiences it as the means of its own 
self-organisation, self-conquest, and self-realisa- 
tion. Consequently it realises law as life, and 
so law as love. 

With such attributes, little wonder that law has 
been a mighty factor in human consciousness. 

as 



386 God and Man 

We can account now for both the awe and 
the love of law, that the profoundest souls 
have felt from of old. For from the inside they 
have realised the gracious blessedness of law as 
well as its majestic strength. "Lord, how love 
I Thy law." "The law of the Lord is perfect, 
restoring the soul." "That ye may prove what 
is the good and acceptable and perfect will of 
God." "Not my will, but Thine, be done." 
" I worship Thee, sweet Will of God." 

And to the end of time there never will be 
a rich life that is not built on the strong frame- 
work of law, nor a wise, deep life that does not 
see that that which is so strong is also sweet 
and gracious. And so law is love and love is 
law, and the men and women of the higher life 
discover that the Will of God is a law of liberty. 

The view grows yet richer when we turn to 
other realms. We contemplate now the relation 
of the higher life to Truth. Those who live on 
life's hilltops see orders of truth that are hidden 
from other eyes; not only broader horizons, but 
also higher kinds. These are the richer realms 
of truth. And those who see and live in accord 
with these higher realms, live in harmony with 
all truth. Just as those who live unto the spirit, 
live also in harmony with the body; but those 
who live unto the flesh are out of harmony with 
everything. 

Above all the higher life discovers the soul 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 387 

of truth and enters into it. For it, truth has 
a soul, an essential reality; it is not simply empty 
appearance, the mere form in which things mani- 
fest themselves to the mind. Truth is the thought 
of God, the bright disclosure of His nature. It 
is sacred and inviolate. It is living and abiding. 
Something of the life and reality and eternity of 
God is in it. It is, in its way, divine. This is 
what we mean by the soul of truth. God is in 
it in a higher degree than He could be in the lower 
orders of Reality. And hence the miysterious 
depth and vitality of truth; hence its majesty 
and authority; hence its spirituality and glory. 
For if the inexhaustible God is in truth, some- 
thing of His eternal life and abundance must 
be in it also. This is what the higher life dis- 
covers and enters into. It discovers its own soul, 
and therefore discovers the soul of truth, and 
of all things besides. It is spirit that awakes to 
Spirit. The vast kingdoms of truth open up to 
it in their real worth and wealth. It enters into 
them, and into their riches. So the higher life 
knows, appreciates, lives, and at length becomes 
the truth ; and in turn her vast and rich domains 
become the mind's natural and great home. 

How real this is to countless souls; how real 
to all the happy children of truth; and how real 
it was to Jesus, the King of truth, Himself the 
way, the truth, and the life. " Ye shall know the 
truth, and the truth shall make you free." 



388 God and Man 

Let us now go on and look at the higher life 
in relation to Beauty. Every sensitive nature 
has felt the natural kinship of the religious life 
thereto. For what is the spiritualisation of life, 
but the elevation and refinement of our whole 
being? And what could make life kindred to 
beauty, if that did not? It seems in a way tau- 
tologous. For when not only the higher powers 
are nobly active, but also the lower powers are 
lifted up into their finest exercise, what should 
we expect but natural kinship and conjunction 
with the beautiful ? 

And the higher life sees the higher forms. 
One of the most important things in the relation 
of our life to beauty is a broad consciousness 
of its wide-ranging orders; for there are realms 
above realms. But this is denied to the coarse 
and rude soul. The exquisiteness of sensuous 
beauty is one thing; the perfection of character- 
beauty is another. But all character-beauty, all 
spiritual excellence, all divine glories are veiled 
worlds to the life that roots only in the earth. 
The higher visions are given only to the higher 
life. And not only this, but also the finer forms 
and subtler qualities of all the lower orders of 
beauty, as well, are hidden from the crass and 
unrefined nature. 

Thus the higher life claims all beauty for its 
empire. It alone has eyes to see and ears to 
hear. It alone enters into the soul's great birth- 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 389 

right. And although the beauty of holiness and 
the glory of the Divine are the peculiar world of 
the higher life, yet it delights greatly in every 
province of beauty. Whether it be the delicacy 
of the flower or the charm of the human coun- 
tenance, whether the sublimity of the mountains 
or the grandeur of the wide and rolling sea, 
whether the loveliness of a morning in June or 
the starry beauty of the wintry sky, the pure 
heart sees and loves it all. All order, all har- 
mony, all cosmic beauty, the grace of motion 
and the mould of form, all the exquisiteness of 
colour and the subtlety of relation, the fine soul 
owns and exults in. It rejoices in the sublime 
products of musical genius, in the immortal ideal- 
isations of the artist, in the grand creations of 
poetic imagination, in all the beautiful works of 
man. But it knows and loves best the pure, 
spiritual beauties; for they are highest. The 
beauty of Christ-like sympathy and unselfishness, 
the beauty of gentleness, the beauty of moral 
strength, the excellence of purity and love, the 
grace and glory of beautiful character, — it knows 
well that these are the divinest things that the 
sun looks down upon. 

And everywhere in beauty the spiritualised life 
sees the reflection of God. The skirts of His 
glory sweep through the Universe. Beauty, for 
the higher life, is no mere subjective titillation, 
without further meaning. Rather it feels a divine 



390 God and Man 

soul in beauty as it sees a soul in truth. For 
here indeed is the secret of its mysterious charm, 
the deep cause of its inspiration, the source of 
its endless variety and wealth. How beautiful 
God must be, how glorious, how perfect ! Heaven 
and earth are filled with His glory. And into 
all this riches of beauty the higher life enters 
far, and by it is transfigured more and more into 
a beautiful soul. 

He who dwells with truth and beauty dwells 
hard by the ideal world. It is time then to view 
the higher life in relation to Ideals. It is notable 
how early these typal unions of truth and beauty, 
called ideals, appeal to us. They challenge the 
opening mind. They do not wait until the higher 
life is developed. As soon as our broad human 
consciousness awakes, they make their appeal. 
It is the definite call of spiritual truth and beauty 
to our humanity. Archetypal and personal, they 
lay their practical claim upon life and summon 
it to its high quest. Their worth is recognised; 
their strange fascination is heeded ; their authority 
is acknowledged. They form a continuous and 
common field uniting civilisation and the Kingdom 
of Heaven. Morality begins in the field of ideals. 
Religion never soars above them. 

Yet how much deeper they become to the 
profoundly religious life, how much more power- 
ful their sway. Higher worlds of truth, beauty, 
and spirit gather themselves up like stars in the 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 391 

spiritual sky and appear in heavenly vision that 
never dies out of the devout soul. They become 
the voice and call of God. They are the shin- 
ing goals of life. They are the pictures in the 
gallery of God's mind toward which life is ever 
progressing. Hence their superlative worth. 
They are not mere mental constructs, useful but 
factitious, and without final reality. God is in 
them; they are His eternal thoughts; the perfect 
ends toward which He is unfolding His wonderful 
children. Could anything, therefore, be richer 
than ideals; anything truer and more beautiful; 
. more vital and ultimately valid? 

This is what the religious life sees. Its whole 
affirmation is that things are deep, soulful, won- 
drous, at last divine. It rejects with quiet and 
noble wrath the opposite view, that things are 
superficial, mechanical, and soulless, in the end 
without meaning or worth, and undivine. Its 
great insight and affirmation, of values, ideals, 
and Divinity everywhere, it proclaims as the great 
evangel, and itself lives and has its glad being 
in the deep and hidden soul of Reality. The 
spirit that denies depth, worth, and God is the 
unreligious spirit everywhere. The spirit that 
affirms truth, soul, and Divinity, and lives in 
them, is the religious spirit. Let every man take 
his choice. 

Here then is the reality and riches of ideals; 
and here is the insight and abundance of the 



392 God and Man 

higher life, as it enters deep into their charmed 
kingdom. 

Next in order we must see and evaluate the 
relation of the higher life to Humanity. Now 
the very idea of a higher life with humanity 
involves that we shall enter into a new spiritual 
relation; soul shall be in commerce with soul. 
And all other relationships also shall be carried 
up and elevated; they shall be touched into 
nobility. Every social, civic, and industrial rela- 
tion, every human tie, shall partake of the redemp- 
tion. This in itself makes the higher life rich. 
But when in addition we look upon others, not 
in their actuality merely, but in their ideal and 
possibility as well; and when we go farther and 
see in a human being the hidden image and child 
of God, as we inevitably do when our own child- 
hood to Him has become a rich reality, then 
indeed we have unlocked one of life's deep treas- 
ure stores. 

The higher life in truth gathers up our human 
relationships and perfects them into a divine 
brotherhood under one common Fatherhood, 
and at length also into a rich spiritual parent- 
hood, of every larger life to the smaller, — as we 
have seen above in extenso. Because, in its 
essential nature, the higher life is a forthgoing, 
an outflowing, of life toward life; and when that 
is perfected, it means spiritual parenthood. But 
consider how such an outgo involves an ever- 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 393 

developing capacity on our part of continual self- 
replenishment out of the fulness of God. 

A true sense of the radical significance of the 
higher life is brought home to us as soon as we 
reflect that humanity is the most congenial ma- 
terial for us to work upon, the most natural field 
of our exercise here below. It thus furnishes the 
opportunity for our maximal activity and the 
very condition of our true growth. No man ever 
has developed, and no man ever will, except in 
noble and numberless relationships with his kind. 
And the sooner all our stupid selfishness awakes 
to this beautiful but inexorable fact, the happier 
for our human welfare. 

The higher life with humanity becomes, there- 
fore, self-realisation and self -enrichment. True, 
we can not enter into the greater wealth of human- 
kind unless we give ourselves to it and for it. 
But the door that opens and lets us out, also 
opens and lets humanity in. The tides of the 
ocean return to the little bay that empties into 
it. So that the higher life in the end is enlarged 
and enriched out of all the fulness of the race. 

We shall see greater things than these. We 
now draw near the Christ. In this rich and 
magnificent survey, we must view the higher life 
in relation to Him, 

One is distinctly conscious of passing into 
a higher realm, as soon as one turns from 
other spheres to contemplate the Christ. His 



394 God and Man 

" unsearchable riches" is of a higher and purer or- 
der; He speaks words of eternal life; He does 
the things that none other did ; His consciousness 
is of God and of things on their Godward side; 
His nature past finding out. He comes with the 
light of other worlds in His face. He is as near 
to us as the earth, yet farther above us than the 
sky. He is like us, still so different. So simple, 
yet so profound; so gentle, but so strong; so 
human, yet so divine. As particular and indi- 
vidualistic as a Jewish countenance, more gen- 
eral and universal than the race. All beauty, 
all truth, all goodness seem to gather themselves 
up in Him in a manifestation point of life: the 
perfect picture of humanity, the express image 
of Divinity. How rich and inexhaustible His 
personality is; how free from limitation in all its 
limits; so great that it does not hamper and hem 
us; so perfect that the universal streams through 
it unhindered; framing its particularity into a 
divine lens through which we may look out into 
the infinite Reality; and fitting our human life 
with the perfection of an ideal. So real indeed 
that we feel at home in Him here and now; so 
ideal that we may abide in Him forever. 

Such is the Christ; and such the purest souls 
have found Him. They have sat at His feet 
and learned; they have stood by His Cross and 
repented; they have gone up into the Upper 
Room and waited; they have prayed open the 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 395 

closed doors of their lives and He has entered. 
What the soul has longed for it now has — a 
definite Presence, the Divine within. It is satis- 
fied. Eternal life is now begun in the fields of 
time. 

But to whom is this a rich reality? to whom 
is the living Christ a great and unfathomable 
life-experience? To those only who live the 
higher life; to those who open wide the door. 
For all others the wealth and glory are hidden. 
The Day Star remains below their horizon. It 
does not rise in their hearts. Though He makes 
"many rich," they remain poor. 

We approach at last the mountain-top of life. 
All our journey has been an expectant ascent; 
for the culminating glory of the summit is before 
us, the view of the higher life in relation to God. 

But here we may inquire whether, throughout, 
we have not been viewing the relation of the 
higher life to God, Has not all our seeking and 
survey been a quest of Him ? Is there any realm 
that we have entered where we have not dis- 
covered God underneath? And is not the true 
meaning of the higher life precisely this, funda- 
mentally, the vision and appropriation of the 
Divine everywhere? Wherein then does the 
higher life with God differ? In nature, law, 
truth, beauty, ideals, and humanity we behold 
God as in a mirror, more or less darkly. In 
Christ, we see Him in His supreme objective 



39^ God and Man 

manifestation. In the Holy Spirit, we know Him 
as He is. The higher Hfe with God, in its perfect 
form, is the spiritual experience of, and life with, 
God as Spirit, It is true that through the higher 
life we behold God in all the fields of Reality, and 
nowhere is the vision insignificant. In Christ 
indeed the vision is perfect — so far as God can 
become objective, so far as the divine picture 
can be framed in the human frame. But in the 
Holy Spirit we know God absolutely, as Spirit. 

Let it never be lost from sight that into this 
final stage, into this perfect knowledge of the 
Father, Jesus Himself sought to lead men. He 
knew that this is the ultimate. He knew that 
life is not perfect until it realises itself as spirit. 
And He knew also that God is not finally known, 
until known spiritually as Spirit. "It is expedi- 
ent for you that I go away." 

And what is highest is also richest. It is a 
marvellous scene, that in the Upper Room where 
the hundred and twenty are gathered together. 
Their faces are upturned; their eyes are closed; 
their souls are expectant with a great expecta- 
tion; their hearts are of one accord; they con- 
tinue steadfastly in prayer. Nothing but the 
soul and God are there. Nature is shut out ; law 
as such is out of mind; formal truth is in the 
background; the fields of beauty are disregarded; 
the shining ideals are not consciously to the fore; 
and the incarnate Christ has taken Himself away. 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 397 

The soul and God alone are there. No Moses, 
no great prophet, stands forth to lead them. 
No Bible is unrolled before them to be steadily 
pondered. No gorgeous temple lifts its walls 
around them, as though the glories of art needs 
must mediate between the soul and God. In 
the simple Upper Room they pray. The God 
who has come to them through nature and hu- 
manity, through law and truth, through beauty 
and ideals, and through the Incarnation, must 
also come to them directly. He who has come 
mediately, must also come immediately. For 
the God of nature and humanity, law and truth, 
beauty and ideals, and the God of the Incarna- 
tion is not the final God of the soul. The final 
God of the soul must be the God of the Holy 
Spirit. God must come as Spirit to spirit or 
the highest has not come. Now, for souls that 
have been coming to God through all media, to 
gather together in that Upper Room and seek 
to come to Him also immediately, and, with 
unmatched expectation, to wait before Him there 
day after day with uplifted face, is a spiritual 
emprise unparalleled in history. No human scene 
is comparable to it. For the spirit of man thus 
to wait for the Spirit of God is the ultimate. 
It is indeed the supreme exercise of the supreme 
function of the human soul. It is prayer at its 
highest. And if ever there should be anything 
that matched it, it would have to be, in the 



398 God and Man 

nature of the case, essentially the same scene 
repeated. Life's Upper Room therefore is the 
supreme picture, and life's Pentecost is the 
supreme experience of the human soul. 

All that this means words of course can not 
utter. Experience alone can comprehend. But 
never before did the disciples feel such complete- 
ness and wealth of realisation. Such sober cer- 
tainty of waking inspiration they never knew till 
then. At no time when Jesus was at their side 
did He work such fulness and perfection of result. 
They found it so, even as He had said, that it 
was expedient for them that He should go away. 

And the Upper Room in Jerusalem is the Upper 
Room in London or in New York, in palace or 
in cottage, in the first century or the twentieth. 
And life's Pentecost, in its very nature, is and 
will remain life's consummation and glory. For 
no man is great and complete until he becomes 
a spirit, living in mutuality of life with God as 
Spirit. 

Does this mean that all the media by which 
a soul has come to itself and God become at 
length meaningless and futile? No. They are 
still the stairway by which life climbs to its 
Upper Room, and, in their spiritual essence, 
they are still the atmosphere through which the 
soul looks out toward the Divine. But they bring 
life also into final immediacy. 

We have now surveyed the higher life in relation 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 399 

to nature and law, truth and beauty, ideals and 
humanity, Christ and God; and we have found 
it incomparably rich. Let us turn finally and 
glance at the higher life in relation to itself. 

In all the foregoing, as we have entered into 
the different realms and found them so abundant, 
we also have been digging down into the deeper 
mines of our own being. Not that these two 
great processes are indeed separable; for the 
richly objective and the richly subjective go 
together, in equal balance, in every wholesome 
life. But it is certainly true that they who seek 
God, find also their own souls in the profoundest 
and richest of all subjective lives. Deep calls 
unto deep. What a marvellous awaking can take 
place! The heart can awake to its hidden, half- 
divine possibilities; the intellect can become con- 
scious of its wide and sublime ranges; the soul 
know its mysterious and solemn depths: circle 
within circle, room beyond room ; while unguessed 
chambers open wide their doors and sacred cur- 
tains are rent from top to bottom and holy and 
most holy places are freely entered. O the mys- 
tery of man, the inner world and its wealth, how 
great it is! Little wonder that Socrates must 
say to every soul. Know thyself. He that loses 
his life findeth it indeed. 

Now the truth of all this untold thousands 
have proved. One needs not know half the treas- 
ure of Paul's or of Phillips Brooks' deep life to 



400 God and Man 

realise how affluent and boundless the profoundly 
religious spirit in time becomes. Such a life 
possesses both self and God. All worlds are its 
worlds and the treasures thereof. 

It appears thus that the higher life is the 
gateway into all the rich kingdoms of God. And 
that is the truth. Into what fxclds of privilege 
did not Milton, or Tennyson, or Emerson, or 
Phillips Brooks enter. Let us speak particularly 
of Phillips Brooks. How rich he was. Nature 
opened to him her great Paradise; law revealed 
her stern but gentle glory; truth took him into 
her universal empire; beauty made him at home 
in her many worlds ; while the starry sky of ideals 
was ever above his happy life. How truly rich 
he was. To him the treasure-house of humanity 
opened wide its doors. To him the personality 
of Christ, with its "unsearchable riches" and 
charm, was an ever great ening power and delight. 
And to him God was the infinite sea of the soul's 
voyage and rapture. But into all these realms 
of privilege, the higher life was the golden gateway. 

So it is always. We never possess our worlds 
until we enter into them through the gates of 
Life. Like symphonies to the deaf, and like sun- 
set glories to the blind, are all the kingdoms of 
heaven to Caliban. The grovelling soul inevitably 
shuts itself out from every Paradise of God. 

Through the higher life we first really possess 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 401 

our worlds. Moreover, thereby we gain and hold 
them with a possession greater than actual appro- 
priation. Rarely does one contemplate a truth 
more important and more fascinating than this. 
For here is the secret of the illimitable quality, 
characteristic of all supreme experiences. 

Possession greater than actual appropriation. 
As one sits on a lofty cliff and gazes out over 
the vast ocean, rolling in tumultuous splendour, 
and as one thinks of its immensity and glory, 
of its depth and fulness, of its eternity and power, 
and of its ageless mystery, one is rapt and lost 
in a great experience. We become one with the 
sea. The spirit of the sea, the meanings of the 
sea, the vastness of the sea, are ours. We own 
them in the exaltation of a supreme experience. 
As the ocean rises up and meets the sky, and 
as the sky bends down and claim.s the ocean, 
so we become one with the sea. It is a perfect 
hour. But what constitutes the completeness 
and perfection of that experience? What gives 
it the illimitable quality, without which no expe- 
rience is perfect? It is the mystery, but the 
reality, of higher, vaster possession — ^possession 
beyond actual appropriation. 

The same is true everywhere. It is indeed a 
subtle, intangible reality, this with which we here 
deal, but one of the most momentous of all our 
human experience. 

Take a perfect morning in spring. The green 



402 God and Man 

fields, the waving trees, the fresh foliage, the 
distant hills, the calm river, the soft breeze, the 
flowers, the birds, the golden sunlight, and over 
all the deep blue sky. Who has not known a 
transporting hour in such a scene. The fulness 
of it, the freshness, the rapture, the inspiration: 
as though all the elevated feelings and thoughts 
of the soul combined with all the loveliness of 
earth and sky in the exquisiteness and glow of a 
perfect experience. But again what constitutes 
the consummation and ineffableness of such an 
hour ? It is the sense of imity with all the beauty 
of nature and the vitality of earth, with all the 
processes of the Universe and the renewing life 
of God. It is the sense that all things are ours. 
It is possession beyond appropriation, possession 
through elevation. 

Sink ourselves in whatever great experience 
we may, fathom it, interpret it, reveal the mystery 
of its ineffable satisfaction; in it we always shall 
find the same illimitable quality, a certain subtle 
possession far greater than actual appropriation. 
It is what lies outside the little circle, it is the 
limitless beyond; that is what gives the unspeak- 
able character to every great and perfect expe- 
rience. Whether we stand by Niagara Falls or 
look down upon the world from the summit of 
the Alps ; whether we are in the luxuriance of the 
Southland or in the barren ice-fields of the North; 
whether we sit on the border of a wooded lake 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 403 

in summer or look into the starry sky in winter, 
the experience is the same. It is the inimitable 
beyond. It is the sense of oneness with the All, 
the feeling of boundless possession. When we 
stand on the earth, we stand on the whole world. 
When we stand on the world, we stand on the 
Universe. We possess the globe and the spacious 
firmament. We are all universals. This is what 
makes life unconfined; this is what gives expe- 
rience the infinite quality. The patriot in his 
pride of country or the lover in his ecstasy of 
love; the artist painting his divine vision or the 
scientist making his wonderful discovery ; the poet 
creating his immortal epic or the prophet writing 
his inspired Book — all know the perfect hour, the 
illimitable experience, the boundless possession. 

I am solicitous that this supreme fact that lies 
always, like the greater world, beyond our limited 
horizon shall be lifted up out of dim into clear 
consciousness. We greatly need it; we must do 
our work in the knowledge of it; life requires its 
inexhaustible inspiration. Therefore its abiding 
reality can not be too clearly known. 

Into whatever field indeed we look we may 
see this universal fact. When Agassiz glows with 
noble passion for nature, and kindles a thousand 
others; when Kant stands in awe and wonder 
before the starry heavens above and the moral 
law within ; when Webster holds the United States 
Senate for hours as in a spell through the power 



404 God and Man 

and majesty of truth; when Murillo is transported 
in the presence of the vision of pure beauty; or 
when Plato dwells like an immortal in the world 
of ideas and ideals, we see the same great expe- 
rience proceeding from the same great cause. 
Life has come to its own, it is at one with Reality. 
At home in its great kingdom, it claims the 
Universe, as the star claims the sky. 

Or does some Francis of Assisi or some George 
Miiller, in noble service, lose and find himself 
in the rich field of humanity ; or some Paul behold 
life's Christ in heavenly vision; or some Spinoza 
gaze into philosophy's divine mirror until he 
becomes a "God-intoxicated" man? It is all 
the same: again the soul knows the perfect hour, 
the illimitable experience, the boundless posses- 
sion. And whatever the great experience may 
be, — some lowly mother in her great motherhood, 
some youth in the new-birth of the mind, some 
soul writing its penitential psalm, some fisherman 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, some life alone 
in its Gethsemane, some martyr victoriously dying 
for a great cause, — whatever the great experience, 
whether in the deep shadows or in the joyous light, 
the secret of it is the same. It is the sense of the 
infinite. We look out into a limitless cosmos; we 
contemplate a Universe of law ; we abide in infinite 
realms of truth; we live in boundless worlds of 
beauty ; we seek unlimited ideals ;■ — the unbounded 
realm of personality, the unfathomable Christ, 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 405 

the God who is All-in- All, — these are the 
mighty Backgrounds of our great experiences. 
Conscious of them, or oblivious to them, the 
mighty Backgrounds are there. And these are 
what give vastness and transcendence to expe- 
rience. We possess them all. We are citizens 
of all worlds, — nature, law, truth, beauty, ideals, 
humanity, Christ, God, — we live and move and 
have our being in them all. And our supreme 
and perfect experiences are our periods of super- 
eminent consciousness of them and commerce 
with them. Possessing thus our worlds with a 
possession indefinitely greater than actual appro- 
priation, we live, in truth, as universals in our 
Universe. 

And from the beginning, now, and evermore, 
this is what the living God intends for His living 
sons and daughters. He who lives not thus is, 
in the saddest sense, without God and without 
true possession of any world — "a melancholy 
stranger on a dark earth." But he who thus 
lives is alive indeed. "This my son was dead 
and is alive again." 

But all this subtle, abundant possession is 
through the golden gateway of the higher life, 
ownership through elevation, through kindred 
character. 

One thing more is needed to make life supremely 
rich — possession of the past and future as well as 
of the present. Three things, higher possession 



4o6 God and Man 

of all our great worlds, possession inimitably 
greater than actual appropriation, and possession 
of the past and future as well as of the present, 
eternal possession, — these three are the factors 
of all supremely rich life. We are made rich 
by memory and hope as well as by vivid present 
experience. We must live both as universals and 
as eternals. Now it is evident that the higher 
life, being spiritual, brings us, not only into the 
true and illimitable, but also into the eternal, 
possession of our worlds. When the spiritual 
life is there, "eternity is set in the heart of man." 
There is such a thing as subtle present experience 
of the past and future. Rather there is in truth 
no punctual, momentary, present experience. 
So the higher life does indeed far more completely 
what all life does meagrely, — it transcends the 
"temporal present" and rises into the eternal 
present. It lives the eternal life here and now. 
And this is not theoretic, but real; and not occa- 
sional, but constant. In some measure all lives 
experience it; in superlative measure many lives 
come to know it. This is the way Jesus lived; 
and into this He led His disciples. This is life 
eternal, that they should know Thee the only 
true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even 
Jesus Christ. 

It would be easy to point out the great con- 
tribution of this necessary and familiar constituent 
to all rich life. No life is rich without a past. 



Abounding Riches of the Higher Life 407 

The magic of memory keeps up its wonders. 
The treasures that are gone are still ours. Yes, 
in a deep way, we possess our past, and both 
the racial and cosmic past. They are the sub- 
liminal sea of the surface waves of our present 
conscious experience. 

And no life is rich without a future. The 
workings of hope more than equal even the 
marvels of memory. The treasures that are to 
be are already ours: the creative future, the new 
and larger things, the truer vision of concealed 
excellence, the constant growth, the great ex- 
pansion, the spirit ualisation of life, the rise from 
glory unto glory, the perfect friendships, the 
knowledge and love of God, the joy forever. All 
potentialities are already ours. We are now what 
we are to be — not of course in full realisation. 
The acorn is the oak — ^the acorn is not the oak. 
What would life be truly without a future? The 
little bird in the nest dreams of the wings that 
are to be and of the wide world. The boy 
dreams of the man. Without a future we could 
not take one present step : we step into the future. 
This new dimension alone makes life complete. 
Like a ship without a voyage, or like a clock with- 
out time, is life without the future. Spring carries 
summer already in its being. The babe has the 
image of God already within. The saint carries 
Heaven in his heart. We possess the future as 
we possess the sky. Though we live on the earth, 



4o8 God and Man 

we live in the heavens; we speed among the stars; 
we Hve in the total Universe. Even so we pos- 
sess the future. Paul's citizenship was in Heaven 
even while his feet "pressed the solid earth." 

This adds the last dimension to life. How 
rich then the Higher Life is. The present is 
ours; the past is ours; the future is ours; we live 
the eternal life here and now; we enter into the 
higher possession of all our worlds ; we claim them 
with a possession greater than actual appropri- 
ation; we move forward toward the complete 
realisation; we unfold toward perfect spirit. 
Behold the abounding riches of the Higher Life! 

All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, 
or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or 
things present, or things to come; all are 
yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. 



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